Launched from a black hole, the terrifying 'blue dragon' makes everything explode
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a monstrous object 3,000 light years long, born from a monster black hole.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a monstrous object 3,000 light years long, born from a monster black hole.
A research team led by astrophysicist Alec Lessing from Starford University (USA) analyzed Hubble data and discovered a fiery plasma streak 3,000 light years long , emitted from a monster black hole weighing 6.5 billion times more than the Sun at the center of the M87 galaxy.
The plasma streak above looks like a bright blue dragon of fire or a giant electric spark , shooting out from the black hole and causing disaster to everything in and around its path.
Illustration of a terrifying jet originating from a monster black hole passing through a star system consisting of a white dwarf and a red giant - (Photo: NASA/ESA).
That bright blue streak is the hot, high-energy jet , created like a "burp" by the black hole after swallowing matter.
This type of jet stream has been observed many times before. However, this is the first time it has appeared with a series of mysterious explosions.
More specifically, the authors discovered a series of nearby binary star systems that are producing more nova explosions than usual.
Novas typically occur in binary star systems after a white dwarf — the "zombie" of a dead star — steals hydrogen fuel from its companion star.
Sometimes, because it is too full, the white dwarf will explode like a giant nuclear bomb and expel some of its mass but not die completely like in a supernova explosion.
'There is something the jet is doing to the star systems that are moving into the vicinity,' said Dr Lessing.
It is possible that the jets have been dumping extra hydrogen fuel into the white dwarfs, causing them to fill up faster and release fuel more frequently.
However, it is also possible that it was due to the effect of light pressure emitted by the fire dragon, or something that doubled the rate of material transfer from the companion star to the white dwarf.
To answer this question, scientists will need to peer into the space around other jets from other black holes, to see how they affect different types of surroundings.
However, it is clear that monster black hole burps are not as simple as we thought and may play much more of a role in the evolution of the universe.
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