It is the closest thing to the Big Bang that we have seen in the universe. A team of astronomers from the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research has detected an explosion in a galaxy 390 million light years from Earth that was so energetic that it tore a massive cavity in the plasma of a supermassive black hole, as if a supervolcano were “Eat” a side of an entire mountain. The explosion was five times more powerful than any previously detected event, although far from the Big Bang, which gave birth to the universe itself.
The explosion, which came from the center of the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster , was so violent that it pierced the plasma surrounding the black hole.
“We’ve seen explosions at the centers of galaxies before, but this one is really huge,” explained Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, a co-author of the study. “And we don’t know why it’s so big, but it happened very slowly, like a slow-motion explosion that took place over hundreds of millions of years.”
The study’s principal investigator, Simona Giacintucci, of the Naval Research Laboratory in the United States, said the explosion was similar to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, which tore off the top of the mountain; one of the most catastrophic volcanic eruptions of the 20th century.
It can’t be that big (can it?)
At first, the scientists dismissed the idea that what they had captured could have been caused by an energy burst, because it was too large. “They were skeptical due to the size of the blast . But it was actually like that. The universe is a strange place,” says Johnston-Hollitt.
They did not consider the massive explosion valid until they observed the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster with radio telescopes. “Radio data fits inside the X-rays like a hand in a glove,” says Maxim Markevitch of the Goddard Space Flight Center. POT. “This is the deciding factor that tells us that an eruption of unprecedented size took place here.” What has caused it remains a mystery. For the moment.
Comparable to the discovery of the first dinosaur fossils
“It’s a bit like archeology,” Johnston-Hollitt explained. “We have been given the tools to dig deeper with low-frequency radio telescopes, so now we should be able to find more explosions like this.”
“We made this discovery with Phase 1 of the MWA, when the telescope had 2,048 antennas pointed skyward,” he said. “Soon we will gather observations with 4096 antennas, which should be ten times more sensitive.” “I think it is very exciting,” concludes the expert.
This colossal discovery highlights the importance of scanning the sky at different wavelengths, as what is visible at one wavelength may be invisible to another, and our universe has many layers to delve into that we cannot yet understand.
The discovery was made with four telescopes: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Western Australia, and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India.
Referencia: Discovery of a giant radio fossil in the Ophiuchus Galaxy Cluster. The Astrophysical Journal . February 27th, 2020. arxiv.org/abs/2002.01291
