Discovered two giant black holes lurking in galaxies near us

A new study confirms the existence of two supermassive black holes in galaxies near us. They were previously hidden by clouds of gas and dust, obscuring high-energy explosions formed when cosmic matter was sucked into their space.

"These black holes are relatively close to the Milky Way, but they are still hidden from us until now. They are like monsters hiding under your bed , " said Ady Annuar researcher. from Durham University (England), a member of the black hole team at the galaxy center NGC 1448 .

Huge black holes are really invisible to us, because they don't emit light. However, when matter falls across the boundary of the event horizon, they heat up and produce radiation that can be observed on the electromagnetic spectrum. This process at the center of the galaxy contains a supermassive black hole, creating a brilliant performance that can be found billions of light years away, but only with favorable conditions.

Image of galaxy NGC 1448.

The problem is that the most active nuclei are thought to be surrounded by gas and dust clouds that block most of the light emitted. If you have an advantage to observe, you will see an incredible light show, but when you look from the side, you may not see anything.

"Just as we can't see the sun on a cloudy day, we can't directly see how the galactic cores really shine because gas and dust surround the active central area." , Peter Boorman from the University of Southampton (UK), who led a study of black holes in galaxy IC 3639 , said. "As the level of obscurity increases, only the most energetic X-rays can escape to be observed by us," he added.

New discoveries can be made by NASA's NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) - an X-ray telescope located in space. Using NuSTAR, Boorman's team measured high-energy X-ray emissions from IC3639, a galaxy 170 million light-years from Earth, a relatively close distance, when the universe itself is thought to be about 45 billion light years.

IC 3639 was previously observed by NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory and Japan's Suzaku satellite, but new data from NuSTAR are the first to confirm that this galaxy actually has a galactic nucleus. work.

Galaxy IC 3639.

" Black hole (in IC 3639) is very faint, it requires extremely sensitive observations in the X-ray region with the highest energy to classify it as obscured. IC 3639 turns out to be extremely bright glowing due to the glowing from hot iron molecules, which have so far not been fully understood , " Boorman said.

In another study, Annuar's team also used NuSTAR to observe a giant black hole that is even closer to Earth, at a distance of 38 million light years, ie about 360 trillion kilometers, so No need to worry there are some surprises in the space around us in the near future.

"Recent discoveries certainly suggest that there are so many other supermassive black holes that we are still ignoring, even in our neighborhood space," Annuar said.