An international team of space researchers led by specialists from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in the United States has discovered traces of one of the most powerful black hole eruptions that have occurred in the history of the known universe, Report informs.
The scientists' article was published by The Astrophysical Journal (TAJ).
Observations using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Low-Frequency Array radio telescope showed that a cataclysm of astronomical proportions occurred in the SDSS J1531+3414 system, located 3.8 billion light years from Earth.
SDSS J1531 is a massive galaxy cluster containing hundreds of galactic systems, reservoirs of gas and dark matter. At its center are the two largest galaxies in the process of colliding. The merging galaxies are surrounded by 19 superclusters of stars arranged in an S shape, like beads on a string.
According to astrophysicists' calculations, billions of years ago, a supermassive black hole at the center of one of the galaxies, SDSS J1531, produced an ejection of incredible force. The escaping jet of matter pushed away the surrounding hot gas, creating a cavity 500,000 light-years wide.
Subsequently, under the influence of the tidal forces of merging galaxies, the ejected gas gradually compressed until it turned into an S-shaped chain of star clusters, the scientists noted.