An absolute monster of a galaxie was discovered by astronomers earlier in the year.
Alcyoneus, a radio galaxy that reaches 5 megaparsecs into the space-time at 3 billion light years away, is found lurking in space. That’s 16.3 MillionIt is approximately 2.4 light-years in length and is the largest structure known to be of galactic origin.
This discovery highlights our ignorance of the colossi and their amazing growth.
It could lead to a better understanding of not only radio galaxies but also the intergalactic medium, which drifts in the vast voids of time.
Another mystery in an Universe filled with mysteries is the existence of giant radio galaxies. They consist of a host galactic (that is the cluster of stars that orbit a galactic nucleus with a supermassive) and a sub-galaxies. Black hole), as well as colossal jets and lobes that erupt forth from the galactic center.
These jets, lobes, which interact with intergalactic media, act as a ‘agent of change’. synchrotronTo accelerate electrons, which produce radio emission.
We’re pretty certain we know what causes the jets. This is a supermassive blackhole at the galactic center. A black hole is referred to as active when it is guzzling (or accreting) material from the giant disk of material surrounding it.
Some of the material from the accretion disc that is swirling into an active hole does not end up beyond the eventhorizon. Some of it gets funneled from within the accretion disc to the poles. From there, it is blasted into space as jets of ionized Plasma at speeds significantly greater than the speed light.
These jets are capable of traveling great distances before expanding into huge radio-emitting antennae.
This is a fairly normal process. Even the Milky Way has radio ears. We don’t know why some galaxies grow to enormous sizes on megaparsec scales. These are called giant radio galactices. Understanding their growth could be as simple as looking at the extreme examples.
Martijn Oei from the Netherlands’ Leiden Observatory, astronomer, said that “if there are host galaxies with characteristics that are important in giant radio galaxy growth,” the researchers. Their paper explains this. It was published in April 2018.
“Likewise, giant radio galaxies with the greatest radio growth potential are likely to be found in large-scale environments that favor giant radio galaxy growth.”
These outliers were identified by the team using data from the LOw Frequency Array (LOFARray).LOFAR) in Europe, an interferometric network consisting of around 20,000 radio antennas, distributed throughout 52 locations across Europe.
They processed the data again through a new pipeline. This removed compact radio sources that could interfere with detections diffuse radio lobes and corrected for optical distortion.
They claim that the resulting images represent the most sensitive ever performed search for radio galaxy lobes. Then they used the Best tool for pattern recognitionTheir eyes are the best tool for finding their target.
This is how they discovered Alcyoneus in a galaxy just a few million light-years from Earth.
“We have discovered what is in projection the largest known structure made by a single galaxy – a giant radio galaxy with a projected proper length [of] 4.99 ± 0.04 megaparsecs. The true proper length is at least … 5.04 ± 0.05 megaparsecs,” They explained.
After measuring the lobes of the galaxy, the researchers used Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to attempt to understand its host galaxy.
They discovered that it is a normal elliptical star, embedded in a filament. The cosmic webThe mass of the Sun is around 240 trillion times that of the Sun. It also has a supermassive dark hole in its center, which is about 400 million times as large.
Both parameters are low for radio galaxies. These could be clues to the driving force behind radio lobe growth.
“Beyond geo, Alcyoneus’ host is suspiciously ordinary: The total low-frequency luminosity density, stellar mass and supermassive dark hole mass are all lower that, although similar to, the medial giant radio galactices.” The researchers wrote.
“Thus very massive galaxies, or central Black holesYou don’t need to grow giants.
It could be that Alcyoneus is sitting in a region of space that is lower density than average, which could enable its expansion – or that interaction with the cosmic web plays a role in the object’s growth.
Researchers believe Alcyoneus, regardless of what the cause, is still growing, far away in cosmic darkness.
The research was published by Astronomy & Astrophysics.
A previous version of this article appeared in February 2022.
