Astronomers had to reclassify a galaxy this week because something almost unique happened at its center . Its active supermassive black hole has a jet , and it is no longer pointing in the same direction it used to . It is now pointing at us , after a major change .
The galaxy is called PBC J2333.9 - 2343 and is located 657 million light - years out . It was classify as a elephantine radio coltsfoot because once upon a time , itssupermassive smutty holereleased jet-propelled plane stuff create two Brobdingnagian lobe on either side of the galaxy , extending for 4 million short - years . For context , our own beetleweed , the Milky Way , is 105,000 tripping - old age across .
The cat valium was perpendicular to our pedigree of heap when these lobe were created . So , imagine their surprisal when astronomers looked at the beetleweed and watch the jet pointing right on at Earth . Somehow it must have shifted by an slant of up to 90 degrees .
“ We started to meditate this galaxy as it present peculiar properties . Our surmise was that the relativistic jet of its supermassive bleak hole had changed its counselling , and to confirm that melodic theme we had to carry out a lot of observations , ” Dr Lorena Hernández - García , lead writer of the newspaper and researcher at the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics , said in astatement .
Galaxies whose jets orient at us are calledblazars . The emission of these blue jet is often so powerful that it can outshine the coltsfoot that hosts the supermassive black hole . A blazar has high - chroma flare that can outdo wireless feature like the lobe . But in the typeface of this galaxy , the lobe are the dominant feature when detect with radio receiver waves . Only follow - up observance with different telescopes unveil the blazar ’s nature , hence the penury for reclassification .
“ The fact that we see the lens nucleus is not feeding the lobe anymore means that they are very sometime . They are the relics of past activity , whereas the structures situate closer to the nucleus present younger and active K , ” Hernández - García added .
So how did this shift bump ? The most potential hypothesis , according to the researchers , is a merger event , stand for the extragalactic nebula clash with another . Another option is that an intense fusillade of natural process after a torpid period might have pushed the supermassive inglorious hole onto a newfangled axis .
More observations will be want to model this peculiar galaxy and its shift supermassive black hollow .
The subject area is issue in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society .
