In the 1930s, when physicist and engineer Karl Jansky pointed a radio antenna at the center of a galaxy, he detected a continuous source of radio waves. After some analysis, scientists realized that these radio waves were being emitted by something far away from Earth. Sun — But strangely, their energy was comparable to the waves we receive from the sun.
With this information, they began to suspect that something truly powerful must be lurking at its core. milky way.
Astronomers later realized that the source of these mysterious radio waves was none other than a celestial body. supermassive black hole more than 1 million times heavier than our sun Sagittarius A*. Commonly abbreviated as Sgr A*, this massive object essentially acts as a gravitational anchor for the entire Milky Way galaxy. Since these early observations, astronomers have come to learn quite a bit about his Sgr A*. Because astronomers can actually observe it, black holes offer the best opportunity to answer the interesting question of whether star formation is possible around them. Black Hole?
Related: Swirling gas helps scientists pinpoint the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole clump
Sgr A* is surrounded by a bundle of molecular clouds, or interstellar fog, within which a star or two may be seen emerging. However, extreme tidal and electromagnetic forces are thought to normally accumulate and destabilize the pockets of gas that form, so when these clouds approach a black hole, it’s possible that stellar birth can occur inside it. Astronomers believe that gender may be confused. Performer.
“The combination of low-density medium waves and strong tidal forces creates [supermassive black hole] This makes it difficult for stars to form in the “standard” way – by the collapse of dense gas clouds. They will be torn apart before they collapse,” Rosalba Perna, an astrophysicist at Stony Brook University in New York, told Space.com.
more recent observationsHowever, we point out that star formation may be occurring much closer to Sgr A* than we originally realized.
Some astronomers timeobserved stars near Sgr A*, explaining that their presence may be because they originally formed in distant star clusters and may have migrated toward the black hole. are doing. But the problem with this explanation is that many of these newly discovered stars appear to be too young to have formed far away and then crossed over. space Arrive at Sgr A*.
Discover young stars near Sgr A*
It will be led by postdoctoral researcher Florian Peißker. Institute of Astrophysics, University of Colognea team of astronomers identified a young stellar object, X3a.
“We have discovered a region a few light-years from the black hole that meets the conditions for star formation. This region is a ring of gas and dust that is sufficiently cool and protected from destructive radiation. “There are,” Paiskar said.explained In a statement.
Sgr A* and other supermassive black holes are surrounded by accretion disks of gas and dust that fall towards the black hole due to its massive gravity. The specific disks surrounding Sgr A* span between 5 and 30. light year from event horizon of a black hole.
The research team believes that X3a may have formed within the gaseous envelope of the outer ring of the accretion disk surrounding Sgr A*. These gas clouds can become large enough to collapse inward and form protostars.
The researchers also speculate about other possible explanations for the presence of stars in Sgr A*’s close proximity.
“The presence of young stars around black holes has allowed astrophysicists to broaden their view of star formation, including their formation in disks through the collapse of molecular clouds and their subsequent formation in distant star clusters. “Different theories have been developed to explain star formation, which is due to shock compression caused by inward migration and tidal disruption phenomena,” Perna said.
Perna recently wrote a paper This suggests that tidal disruption events (TDEs) near black holes can create the right conditions for stars to form. A TDE is an event in which gravitational instability can be introduced into a black hole’s accretion disk, such as when a star falls toward the black hole. These TDEs can interact with the black hole’s accretion disk in such a way that dense gas and twilight occur, allowing the dense clump to collapse into a young star.
Professor Perna explains that star formation around a black hole is likely to be influenced by the black hole’s evolutionary stage. When a black hole is “active”, perhaps in its early stages, when the surrounding galaxy is a chaotic place, it becomes surrounded by an extended accretion disk of gas and dust. This accretion disk can be a fertile site for star formation because of the accumulation of dense material. But now that the Milky Way is much older, things have calmed down, and star formation around Constellus A* may be slower than in the distant past.
Black holes remain a cosmological mystery, but astronomers are still trying to learn more about how they interact with their surroundings to birth new stars and influence the evolution of their home galaxies. proceeding.