A growing supermassive black hole located in the heart of the most luminous known galaxy in the universe, W2246-0526, is emitting so much energy that it’s causing the galaxy to tear itself apart, according to new research which employed the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) located in Chile.
In the galaxy–which would appear to shine the most brightly were all galaxies located identical distances from Earth–the growing black hole’s energy output is so immense – it’s causing gas to be stirred up across the galaxy.
According to a new study, which were published in the The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the galaxy is spitting out incredibly turbulent gas in a phenomenon that’s never before been observed in an object of this type.
Astronomer Roberto Assef with the Universidad Diego Portales, the ALMA observing team’s leader, was quoted by NASA as having said that W2246-0526 “is tearing itself apart”.
This galaxy is tearing itself apart […] The momentum and energy of the particles of light deposited in the gas are so great that they are pushing the gas out in all directions.
The galaxy’s incredible brightness–the equivalent to over 300 trillion suns–is believed to be the result of friction from the accretion disk created by the black hole.
Unlike other supermassive black holes that disturb surrounding gas, this particular one is disturbing gas across its entire galaxy — the first time such a phenomenon has been witnessed.
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) project scientist Peter Eisenhardt, whose outfit is based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), indicated in a statement that the entire galaxy “is being disturbed” and that the “gas is not in the accretion disk.”
The ‘boiling’ gas is not in the accretion disk. The whole galaxy is being disturbed
Galaxy W2246-0526 falls into the Hot DOGs category, which only 1 out of every 3,000 galaxies observed by WISE falls into. Hot DOGs are Hot, Dust-Obscured Galaxies.
