ASTRONOMERS have discovered “supermassive Death Star black holes” that release powerful beams of plasma that change direction frighteningly.
The findings are reminiscent of the fictional space station from Star Wars, potentially reshaping our understanding of cosmic phenomena.
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O Chandra X-ray Observatory announced the findings Wednesday in a statement.
An international research team studied 16 galaxies using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Very Long Baseline Array.
Astronomers have observed that plasma jets from supermassive black holes can change direction on short timescales.
These jets are caused by material funneled by magnetic fields toward the black hole’s poles and then transmitted back out into space.
Jets are important for star formation, making their study crucial.
“We discovered that around a third of the beams now point in completely different directions than before,” astrophysicist Francesco Ubertosi, from the University of Bologna, in Italy, said in the statement.
“These Death Star black holes are spinning and pointing at new targets, like the fictional Star Wars space station.”
CHANGING DIRECTION
They compared the current directions of the jets using radio wave data with the previous directions of the cavities in the surrounding hot gas.
About a third of the jets have changed direction significantly – by 45 degrees or more – in 10 million years or less.
Some jets have shown changes of up to 90 degrees, with the fastest changes occurring in about a million years.
Given the age of these black holes, more than 10 billion years old, changes within a few million years are considered rapid.
Team member and Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scientist Gerrit Schellenberger noted how short millions of years are when it comes to black holes.
“Considering that these black holes are probably more than 10 billion years old, we consider that a large change in direction over a few million years will be rapid,” Schellenberger said.
“Changing the direction of the giant black hole’s beams in about a million years is analogous to changing the direction of a new battleship in a few minutes.”
STAR DISRUPTION
These changes in the jets impact star formation in neighboring galaxies, preventing gases from entering each other.
They could be causing damage to nearby stars and planets, but astronomers aren’t sure at the moment.
However, astronomers are certain that the black hole’s jets are preventing star formation.
“These galaxies are too distant to tell whether beams from the Death Star’s black holes are damaging the stars and their planets,” said co-author Ewan O’Sullivan of Harvard Astrophysics.
“But we are confident that they are preventing many stars and planets from forming.”
The exact cause of the jet’s redirection is unclear, although it could involve material falling toward the black holes at different angles.
More studies are needed to understand the mechanisms behind these directional changes.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
