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NASA's Chandra Finds Evidence for Quasar IgnitionCXC release: 06-02March 23, 2006 Steve Roy Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. (Phone: 256/544-6535) Megan Watzke Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass. (Phone: 617/496-7998)
Hot, X-ray producing regions around two distant quasars observed by Chandra are thought to have formed during their activation. These features are located tens of thousands of light years from the central supermassive black holes thought to power the quasars. "The X-ray features are likely shock waves that could be a direct result of the turning on of the quasar about 4 billion years ago," said Alan Stockton of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, and lead author of a report on this work published recently in The Astrophysical Journal. The quasars, 4C37.43 and 3C249.1, showed no evidence for the existence of a much larger envelope of hot gas around the features, nor were the observed X-ray regions associated with radio waves from the quasars. These factors rule out possible explanations for the X-ray emitting clouds, such as the cooling of hot intergalactic gas, or heating by high-energy jets from the quasars.
Computer simulations of the formation of stars and the growth of black holes during a collision between two galaxies are consistent with this picture. The simulations, performed by Tiziana Di Matteo of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and colleagues, show that the merger of galaxies drives gas toward the central regions where it triggers a burst of star formation and provides fuel for the growth of a central black hole. The inflow of gas into the black hole releases a tremendous amount of energy, and a quasar is born. The power output of the quasar dwarfs that of the surrounding galaxy and expels gas from the galaxy in what has been termed a galactic superwind. The Chandra data provide the best evidence yet for a quasar-produced superwind.
Other members of the research team were J. Patrick Henry, also of the University of Hawaii, and Gabriela Canalizo of the University of California, Riverside. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory provides science support and controls flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass. [Press Index] [Press Releases] [Quasars & Active Galaxies ] |
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Revised: September 06, 2006
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