The James Webb telescope showed how black holes “starve” galaxies: details
The James Webb telescope found out how black holes “starve” galaxies
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Supermassive black holes have the ability to extinguish star formation in the surrounding galaxies, “starving them” – they eject gas from the galaxies even before they “have time to create” new stars.
This was the conclusion reached by scientists who observed black holes using the James Webb Space Telescope. This is stated in a new study, published in Nature Astronomy, writes Live Science.
Previous observations have shown that the main galaxy of the black hole is “dead”, that is, it has stopped forming new stars. However, other telescopes have not been able to determine the reason why this happened. Now the mystery is solved.
“We found the culprit. The black hole is killing this galaxy and keeping it dormant by cutting off the source of the ‘food’ the galaxy needs to form new stars,” — noted Francesco D’Eugenio, an astrophysicist from the University of Cambridge (England).
The scientist said that this galaxy does not form many stars.
“However, until Webb, we couldn’t study her in detail to confirm this connection, and we didn’t know if this condition was temporary or permanent.” – explained Francesco D’Eugenio.
This observation supports the suggestion that black holes can quench their own galaxies, and contradicts that the end of star formation has a strong, destructive effect on galaxies.
“We knew that black holes have a huge effect on galaxies, and maybe they often stop star formation, but until Webb we couldn’t directly confirm this.
This is further evidence that the telescope is a ‘giant leap forward’ in terms of our ability to study the early universe and its evolution.” – said Roberto Maiolino, co-author of the study and professor of experimental physics at the University of Cambridge.
We will remind, recently scientists recorded “awakening” of a black hole.
