The sunshine that the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope collected to create this picture reached the telescope after a journey of 250 million years. Its supply was the spiral galaxy UGC 11397, which resides within the constellation Lyra (The Lyre). At first look, UGC 11397 seems to be a median spiral galaxy: it sports activities two swish spiral arms which can be illuminated by stars and outlined by darkish, clumpy clouds of mud.
What units UGC 11397 other than a typical spiral lies at its heart, the place a supermassive black gap containing 174 million occasions the mass of our Solar grows. As a black gap ensnares fuel, mud, and even total stars from its neighborhood, this doomed matter heats up and places on a incredible cosmic mild present.
Materials trapped by the black gap emits mild from gamma rays to radio waves, and might brighten and fade with out warning. However in some galaxies, together with UGC 11397, thick clouds of mud cover a lot of this energetic exercise from view in optical mild. Regardless of this, UGC 11397’s actively rising black gap was revealed by means of its vivid X-ray emission — high-energy mild that may pierce the encompassing mud. This led astronomers to categorise it as a Kind 2 Seyfert galaxy, a class used for lively galaxies whose central areas are hidden from view in seen mild by a donut-shaped cloud of mud and fuel.
Utilizing Hubble, researchers will examine lots of of galaxies that, like UGC 11397, harbor a supermassive black gap that’s gaining mass. The Hubble observations will assist researchers weigh close by supermassive black holes, perceive how black holes grew early within the universe’s historical past, and even examine how stars type within the excessive setting discovered on the very heart of a galaxy.
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD