The region around a supermassive black hole is, without a doubt, an environment of extremes. Thanks to new computer simulations, scientists have obtained more recent data on what can happen in the gas that surrounds one of these cosmic giants: waves and tsunami-like vortices from black holes into the depths of space.
The enigmatic black holes
Supermassive black holes sometimes have large disks of gas and matter spinning around them , feeding them into a combined system known as the active galactic nucleus . These systems, which often fire jets of material, beam bright X-rays onto the disk, just outside the gravitational range of the black hole . That radiation pushes the winds that leave the center of the system. However, the plasma flowing above the disk, far enough away from the black hole to avoid falling into it, glows so brightly in X-rays that astronomers have been able to catalog more than a million of these objects.
Now, scientists have shown by computer simulation how complicated a black hole remains. Within the distance where the supermassive black hole loses its control over the surrounding matter, the relatively cool atmosphere of the spinning disk can form ripples, similar to the waves that form on land at the surface of the ocean. When waves interact with high-temperature winds, they can steep up into spiral vortex structures that can reach a height of 10 light-years above the disk. At this time, they are no longer influenced by the black hole’s gravity. They are 10 times hotter than the surface of the Sun and move simultaneously with the solar wind.
This research contradicts previous theories that had suggested that hot gas clouds near an active galactic nucleus form spontaneously due to fluid instability.
Reference: NASA
