Chandra X-ray observatory managed to capture the consequences of a mysterious cosmic collision. Its participants were a black hole jet and an unknown object.
Contrary to a very popular misconception, black holes don’t absorb absolutely all the matter in their vicinity. Part of it is ejected as jets: polar jets of plasma that travel at near-light speeds. The matter of the jets can then collide with other objects.
Such a situation occurred in the Centaurus A galaxy, located about 12 million light-years from Earth. Astronomers have long studied this object because at its center is a supermassive black hole that is the source of very bright jets.
Recently, they were able to discover that one of these jets had collided with some kind of object. The discovery was made while studying images taken by the Chandra X-ray telescope. They revealed a bright X-ray source called C4. Near it, one of the black hole’s jets forms two arms resembling the letter V. The length of each of these arms is at least about 700 light-years (the total length of the jet is equal to 30,000 light-years). For comparison, the closest star to the Sun is about 4 light years away.
According to the researchers, the jet of matter split due to a collision with another celestial body. Its nature remains a mystery because it is too far away to be visible in images taken by even the most powerful telescopes. But it is more likely that the mysterious object is a massive star, possibly possessing a companion. Jet’s particles collide with its powerful wind, generating turbulence and increasing the density of matter, which in turn produces the X-rays recorded by Chandra.
However, the form of the V-shaped structure is not fully understood. The X-ray stream following the source in its lower arm is roughly parallel to the jet, consistent with a pattern of turbulence causing enhanced X-ray emission. However, the other arm is more complicated, as it is at a high angle to the jet, and scientists don’t know what can explain it.
This is not the first time astronomers have seen a black hole’s jets collide in Centaurus. There are a few other examples where they seem to collide with objects — perhaps massive stars or gas clouds. However, C4 stands out among them because it is V-shaped in X-rays, while other obstacles appear as elliptical-shaped spots in Chandra images.
Provided by NASA
