A team of scientists has just discovered a new estimate of how many giants are hidden from view. There may be more supermassive black holes hidden in the universe than we can see.
The discovery could help scientists understand how supermassive black holes got so large. which is billions of times more massive than our sun. and sheds light on the important role that black holes play in the evolution of galaxies.
Black holes have such strong gravitational fields that even light cannot escape their vicinity beyond a certain point. which is the black hole's event horizon. But outside the event horizon The black hole's surrounding environment is very bright. This is due to the dense, superheated gas and dust. which is called an accretion disk
Such material sometimes blocks light that might be visible to astronomical observatories. The team found that about 35% of the supermassive black holes they studied were obscured by surrounding gas and dust. The discovery indicates that the number of hidden black holes is larger than previously believed. This is because previous searches indicated that about 15% of supermassive black holes are very obscured. The research of this research team is published Last month in Journal of Astrophysics–
The team came to the conclusion based on data from NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) and the Nuclear Spectroscopic X-ray Observatory (NuSTAR). IRAS picks up infrared light. (hence its name) and infrared emissions from the black hole's accretion disk reveal whether the black hole is facing directly toward the satellite or if its edge is pointed toward the device. After identifying hundreds of initial clusters using IRAS, the research team used NuSTAR to confirm the edge-on, or eclipsed, black hole based on its X-ray emissions.
“If we don't have black holes galaxies would be much larger,” said study co-author Pochak Gandhi. Astrophysicist from the University of Southampton in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said release– “If we didn't have a supermassive black hole in our Milky Way galaxy, There may be many more stars in the sky. That is just one example of how black holes can influence the evolution of galaxies.”
Moreover, black holes' influence extends far beyond the galaxies in which they reside. last year A team of astrophysicists has determined this. The Biggest Black Hole Jets We Know– A stream of particles ejecting from an object at nearly the speed of light. These jets were dubbed porphyrians. Named after the giant in Greek mythology. And it is at least 140 times as wide as the Milky Way galaxy.
Black holes are important tools for galaxy evolution. But even these extremely massive objects can evade human detection. Recent research This shows how invisible these hidden black holes can be. And it indicates that there are many more leaders in the universe than we know.