An unusual V-shaped structure has been observed near a supermassive black hole.

For many years, astronomers have been observing massive plasma jets emanating from the core of the Centaurus A galaxy. However, they recently discovered something unusual: an unidentified object near one of the jets has expelled a distinctive double trail. The "arms" of this trail spread out from a single point in opposite directions, forming an angle. Researchers now need to investigate how this phenomenon occurred.

2024-12-12 10:00:21https://naked-science.ru/article/astronomy/vozle-sverhmassivnoj-cher

Centaurus A is one of the most spectacular sights in space: at the very center of the galaxy, 12 million light-years away from us, a black hole with a mass of 55 million suns relentlessly consumes surrounding matter. For comparison, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way has a mass of four million suns.

This lens-shaped galaxy spans 60,000 light-years in diameter, which is significantly smaller than the Milky Way, but it has a mass roughly comparable to our galaxy. Scientists believe that such a dense structure with an extremely active core is the result of the merger of two other galaxies that occurred no more than two billion years ago.

The supermassive black hole in Centaurus A attracts matter in such quantities that it cannot absorb it all at once. As a result, some plasma is expelled from it in two opposite directions, roughly perpendicular to the galactic disk. These gigantic flows originate from the vicinity of the black hole's poles and stretch for thousands of light-years. They are known as relativistic jets. In some places, the speed of the material within them approaches the speed of light.

Centaurus A is positioned so favorably in relation to us that both jets are clearly visible. Recently, a team of astrophysicists from the USA, France, and Israel observed them using the Chandra X-ray Observatory—these massive plasma flows are best seen in X-ray light.

In an article for The Astrophysical Journal, scientists explained that the relativistic jets are inhomogeneous: they exhibit numerous clumps—so-called knots. These are thought to form when the plasma flow encounters some kind of obstacle. For example, a gas cloud.

One such "knot" drew particular attention: it emits streams of matter in two different directions at an angle of about 50 degrees, resulting in a structure resembling the letter V. One of the "arms" is positioned approximately parallel to the relativistic jet, which can be explained by the interaction of the jet with an obstacle, but the origin of the other flow remains unclear.

Researchers do not rule out that the unusual double tail originates from an "X-ray binary system"—a stellar-mass black hole that is consuming material from a massive companion star. However, the spectrum of light from the "V shape" does not exactly match what would be expected in this scenario. Thus, the investigation into the nature of this object continues.