Supermassive black holes shoot powerful beams of particles into space and then transform their targets into new targets. This discovery, made in conjunction with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the US National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), demonstrates the large-scale impact black holes can have on surrounding galaxies and beyond.

A team of astronomers observed 16 supermassive black holes in galaxies surrounded by hot gas, which Chandra detected in X-rays. The article was published on: Astrophysical Journal.

Using radio data from the VLBA, they examined the directions of beams of particles (also known as jets) emitted several light-years from black holes. This gives scientists a picture of where each ray is currently pointing as seen from Earth. Each black hole emits two rays in opposite directions.

The team then used the Chandra data to examine pairs of voids, or bubbles, in the hot gas created by jets pushing gas outwards in the past. The location of the large outer cavities indicates the direction these rays pointed millions of years ago. The researchers then compared the directions of the radio beams to the directions of the cavity pairs.

“We found that about a third of the rays are now directed in completely different directions than before,” said Francesco Ubertosi of the University of Bologna in Italy, who led the research. “These Death Star black holes are spinning and pointing at new targets, like the fictional space station in Star Wars.

X-ray and radio data show that in some cases the beams can change direction by about 90 degrees and on time scales from a million years to several tens of millions of years.

“Given that these black holes are probably over 10 billion years old,” said co-author Gerrit Shellenberger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). “We believe that a major change of direction occurs rapidly in a few million years. Changing the direction of the rays of a giant black hole in about a million years is like changing the direction of motion of a new warship in a few minutes.”

Scientists believe that the rays coming from black holes and the spaces they create play an important role in shaping the number of stars in galaxies. The rays pump energy into the hot gas in and around the galaxy, preventing it from cooling enough to form large numbers of new stars. If the direction of the rays changes significantly, they can inhibit star formation in much larger regions of the galaxy.

“These galaxies are too distant to determine whether the Death Star’s black hole beams damaged stars and planets, but we are confident that they prevented many stars and planets from forming all together,” said study co-author Ewan O’Sullivan. C.F.A.

One of the biggest unanswered questions is how black hole beams rotate this way. It is believed that the direction of the rays from each of these possibly rotating giant black holes coincides with the spin axis of the black hole, that is, the rays are directed along the line connecting the poles.

An important power source for these beams is likely the material in the disk orbiting the black hole and falling inwards. It is believed that this process causes the rays to become perpendicular to the disk. If material falls on the black hole at an angle that is not parallel to the disk, it can affect the direction of the black hole’s spin axis.

“It is possible that material falling rapidly onto black holes at a different angle over a long enough period of time pulled their spin axes in a different direction,” said co-author Jan Vrtilek, also from CfA, “causing the rays to point in a different direction.” direction.” .”

The team also considered alternative explanations for the discrepancy between radio beam directions and cavities. One alternative is to churn the gas around the cluster like wine in a swirling glass. Such jumps could result from collisions between two galaxy clusters, which can move voids.

But the researchers found evidence of wing flapping in both aligned and misaligned clusters, ruling out the possibility that wing flapping caused the cavities to move over long distances.