black holes The focus of the research, led by Associate Professor Michael Brown from Monash University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, was cosmic giants, which are known to power some of the brightest sources of radio waves in the universe. Researchers have explored the mysteries of radio waves emitted by the largest black holes using the advanced Australian apparatus ASKAP (Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder).

To answer the question of whether radio waves are constantly emitted by the most massive black holes, astronomers measured radio waves from the most massive galaxies in the nearby universe. A comprehensive study used the Rapid Continuous ASKAP Survey (RACS). Associate Professor Brown said ASKAP could scan large areas of the sky and was more sensitive than previous similar radio surveys.

The study titled “Radio continuum from the largest early-type galaxies detected with ASKAP RACS” was accepted for publication. Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia and is currently available on the preprint server arXiv. Realizing that new star formation in galaxies could also produce radio waves, the research team focused on galaxies with little or no star formation. Of the 587 nearby galaxies examined, all of the 40 largest galaxies examined were found to emit radio waves.

“Although it is possible that some low-level star formation is hidden within these galaxies, black holes appear to be the most likely cause of what we see,” Associate Professor Brown said.

The study also found differences in radio emission among the largest galaxies; some appeared to be significantly stronger than others. For example, ESO galaxy 137-G 6 showed a radio luminosity approximately 10,000 times greater than galaxy NGC 6876. Work on this study began during Melbourne’s COVID-19 lockdown, when undergraduate student Teagan Clarke was doing preliminary work as part of Monash. Physics and astronomy Research Unit.

“We were able to really examine this new data to start seeing differences in how these galaxies shine in radio waves,” Teagan said. “This could give us information about central black holes and how they power these massive galaxies.” “It is a mystery why different galaxies emit so many more radio waves than others,” Associate Professor Brown said.

“However, we find that galaxies with strong radio wave sources rotate more slowly than similar galaxies with weak radio wave sources. Getting to the bottom of this will be a difficult task for me and my students.”