A team of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists has discovered vast black holes that are “firing powerful beams of particles into space”. Its ability to fire beams and then change aim to shoot another celestial target has prompted comparisons to the planet-killing Death Star in Star Wars.
This discovery, made by astronomers on May 22, shows the widespread impact black holes can have on their surrounding galaxy and beyond.
In a statement, NASA revealed that the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the US National Science Foundation (NSF)'s National Radio Astronomical Observatory's (NRAO) Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) detected “16 supermassive black holes in galaxies surrounded by hot gas”.
Using radio data from the VLBA, operated by the National Radio Astronomical Observatory, they studied the directions of beams — also known as jets — of particles fired a few light-years away from the black holes, the space agency said. "This gives the scientists a picture of where each beam is currently pointed, as seen from Earth. Each black hole fires two beams in opposite directions."
Francesco Ubertosi of the University of Bologna in Italy, who led the study, said that they found about a third of the beams were now pointing in completely different directions than before. These Death Star black holes are "swivelling around and pointing at new targets," like the fictional space station in Star Wars, Mr Ubertosi added.
The X-ray and radio data suggest that the jets can change directions over 90 degrees in some cases and more timescales between one million years and a few tens of millions of years.
Co-author Gerrit Schellenberger of the Center For Astrophysics (CFA) noted that these black holes are likely more than 10 billion years old.
Mr Gerrit added, “We consider a large change in direction over a few million years to be fast. Changing the direction of the giant black hole beams in about a million years is analogous to changing the direction of a new battleship in a few minutes.”
Now, after this discovery, the scientists believe that the beams from the black holes play an important role in determining how many stars form in their galaxies.
“If the beams change directions by large amounts, they can tamp down star formation across much larger areas of the galaxy,” added NASA.
These galaxies are too distant to tell if the beams from the Death Star black holes are damaging stars and their planets, but we are confident they are preventing many stars and planets from forming in the first place, co-author Ewan O'Sullivan, also from CFA, said.
