Astronomers from the University of British Columbia have just made an amazing discovery: in a study identified by UniverseTodaythey determined that a structure called Cosmic Horse Horse hosting an absolutely astounding proportions, which could deliver valuable information on the evolution of galaxies.
Our story begins in 2007 with the discovery of cosmic horseshoe, an amazing pair of galaxies located in the constellation of the lion. It owes its name to its characteristic form of … horseshoe, which is due to the phenomenon of gravitational lens.
In traditional optics, a lens is a transparent device whose surfaces have a carefully calibrated curvature. They make it possible to manipulate the trajectory of the light rays with great precision thanks to the refractive phenomenon.
In astronomy, this term refers to a functionally comparable phenomenon, but which is based on very different physical principles. Here, it is not a transparent surface that deviates the light; The “lens” in question is a deformation of the space-time caused by an extremely massive object such as a galaxy, in accordance with the general relativity formalized by Einstein.
When the light approaches an object of this type, it is forced to get around it to follow this curvature. If a second object is positioned precisely behind this lens, on an axis which also crosses the earth, it is therefore not completely obscured by the object in the foreground; Instead, it then appears to us in the form of a more or less circular halo that is called a Einstein ring. Even if the image is distorted, this phenomenon therefore makes it possible to observe objects which would be otherwise invisible.
A black hole with incredible proportions
This is precisely what is happening in this cosmic horseshoe. But once is not custom, this time, it is not the ring of Einstein in the background that interests the researchers; Their study focuses on LRG 3-757, the galaxy in the foreground which is in the form of a point in the center of horse iron.
Since it is at the origin of this gravitational lens, we know that it is particularly dodue, with a mass about 100 times greater than that of our galaxy. Astronomers were therefore curious to determine the origin of this mass.
To achieve this, they called on Euclid, the last ESA peak telescope – and the latter led them straight to a real titan. At the heart of LRG 3-757, they found a black hole in phenomenal proportions whose mass was estimated at … 36 billion times the mass of our sun!
Even among black holes, which are notoriously massive, it is a staggering figure. At this stage, we no longer even speak of a supermassive black hole; This one he falls into the category of so-called black holes ultramassifs. These are very interesting, because they allow astronomers to study the limits of modern cosmological models.
A very promising exception
The authors of this new study focused on the relation MBH−σe, a metric that illustrates the correlation between the mass of a black hole and the differences in the speed of neighboring stars.
This correlation is above all empirical; Instead of being derived from the fundamental principles of physics, it has gradually emerged over observations. This means that it can be seen in practice, but that we do not know exactly what mechanisms make it possible to create and maintain this correlation between the mass of the black hole and the behavior of the stars around. It is therefore useful to study particularly extreme black holes to verify to what extent this mbh – that’s correlation remains valid.
It seems indeed that it begins to collapse when the black holes reach absolutely gigantic masses, and the authors of this work therefore took advantage of this opportunity to verify this point. Their calculations have revealed that LRG 3-757 actually deviated from the MBH-relationship, and with a fairly significant margin as we see at the top right of this graph.
The challenge is therefore to understand the origin of these deviations. They are probably linked to the history of these galaxies, and could therefore highlight important and still misunderstood phenomena.
According to the authors, there are three distinct tracks today. The first is that some stars simply “disappeared” by merging with their neighbors, affecting the behavior of other stars around. The other two are more exciting; They directly concern the evolution of these galaxies.
According to the authors, the second possibility is that LRG 3-757 is part of a fossil group, An entity that emerges when many galaxies merge with each other. We then obtain a group with an absolutely gigantic galaxy in its center. Astronomers consider that the latter could follow a very different evolutionary trajectory of isolated galaxies, hence the deviation measured in the MBH – “relationship. If necessary, it would therefore be a great opportunity to study phenomena that undoubtedly play an important role in the dynamics and the global structure of the cosmos.
The last one may be even more exciting. Still according to the authors, the ultramassive black hole in the center of LRG 3-757 could be active enough to generate Huge jets of very energetic particles. The latter could then locally affect the dynamics of the galaxy, thus explaining the deviation, but also the global structure of the universe, as another study recently showed.
Again, it would therefore be a superb opportunity to study a phenomenon that has directly contributed to shaping our universe for billions of years.
Euclid, a great tool to understand the universe
For the moment, the researchers have not yet managed to collect enough data to favor one of the three hypotheses. To achieve this, you will have to discover and analyze other ultramassive black holes like this.
The good news is that is probably just a matter of time; Thanks to the exceptional observation capacities of the Euclid telescope, the researchers will soon have access to a mountain of data which will perhaps contain the key to the mystery. “” The Euclid mission should discover hundreds of thousands of gravitational lenses over the next five years », Conclude the authors.
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