A team of astronomers from the University of Keele and the University of Central Lancashire (United Kingdom) has discovered, initially thanks to the Spitzer telescope, a galaxy whose central supermassive black hole is up to 30 times larger than it should be (compared to the mass of its galaxy), according to current theories of galactic evolution. The finding has been published in the journal The Monthly Notices of The Royal Astronomical Society.
The galaxy that runs this black hole is SAGE0536AGN and experts believe it is at least 9 billion years old. It has an active galactic nucleus (with a lofty brightness) thanks to the accumulation of gas from this rare supermassive black hole located in its center. And it has been precisely the measurement of the speed of the gas that moves around this object by which they have been able to confirm the presence of this black hole.
The Southern African Large Telescope or Great South African Telescope (located on the Great Karoo plateau, near the city of Sutherland, in South Africa) has served to detect that the hydrogen emission line in the spectrum of the galaxy is extended through the Doppler effect. According to the data, the gas is moving at such speed due to the immense gravitational field of the black hole that it is 350 million times the mass of the Sun.
The funny thing is that when it comes to measuring the mass of the galaxy in question, according to the movement of its stars, astronomers have calculated that it barely has 25,000 million solar masses; barely 70 times larger than the black hole , which paints a galactic scenario in which the supermassive black hole is up to 30 times larger than it should be for this particular galaxy size (evidencing that the black hole has grown incredibly faster than your galaxy or that it stopped growing at some point).
“Galaxies have great mass, and so do black holes at their cores. This one, even though it’s really too big for his boots , it just shouldn’t be possible that it was that big, ”explains Jacco van Loon, study leader.
Are we facing a new type of galaxy?
