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And he believes That almost every large galaxy exists universe He has tremendous Black hole At its center, it has a mass ranging from millions to billions of times the mass of the body The sun.
Black holes grow by consuming the material around them, but in the process they also spew out powerful jets of energy. These jets heat the surrounding gas, delaying the formation of new stars and affecting the growth of the galaxy as a whole.
This has long presented a puzzle for researchers. When a black hole jets out and heats up the gas surrounding it, gas that would otherwise be consumed by the black hole — its energy source — is dissipated away. However, why do black holes never “run out of fuel,” but rather continue to grow?
To explain this mystery, the researchers proposed the following hypothesis: The gas produced by the heat eventually cools in interstellar space and condenses into thin thread-like structures called filaments. These filaments then fall back toward the black hole.
A newly published study has brought researchers closer to confirming this idea. An international team led by Julie Helvacek-Larondeau, a professor at the University of Montreal, observed the central galaxy NGC 4696 in the Centauri cluster and… Proven A connection between these strings and the central black hole.
“Cosmic Recycling System” for heating and cooling
NGC 4696 is located about 145 million light-years from Earth. It has been the subject of intense observation in the past, including the discovery of an S-shaped spiral structure around its central black hole.
In this study, the team observed the central region of the galaxy for about eight hours using… James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near-infrared spectrometer (NIRSpec). The observations achieved sufficient resolution to distinguish structures only about 30 light-years across. To put this into perspective, if a galaxy 300,000 light-years across were measured to be the size of a football field, this would be equivalent to spotting a single marble placed on that field from a distance of 50 kilometers.
The observed gas motion revealed that the S-shaped spiral is actually a rotating disk of gas orbiting the black hole. The disk is about 800 light-years in diameter, and the gas is pulled in by the black hole’s enormous gravity and rotates at several hundred kilometers per second. The speed difference of about 600 kilometers per second between opposite edges of the disk has been measured.
The observations also showed that filaments of condensed gas flow directly to the edge of the disk. Gas travels through these filaments, accumulates in the disk, and is eventually supplied to the black hole as “fuel.” For the first time, this entire path has been visualized directly.
“What the James Webb Space Telescope reveals is that black holes may be the ultimate cosmic recyclers.” He says Hlavacik-Larondo. “They release huge amounts of energy that heat up their surroundings, yet the same gas can later cool into thin filaments that retreat inward and feed the black hole again. We’re finally seeing this self-sustaining cycle in action.”
Black holes control the growth of galaxies
In addition to the observations, the research team conducted computer simulations, which led them to the following theory:
As the filamentous gas falls toward the black hole, the stretched magnetic fields act like ropes, exerting a torque that removes the gas’s angular momentum. As a result, the gas falls into the disk instead of dissipating away.
