They are some of the most unusual and fascinating objects in the universe.
And now a study suggests that black holes may be even stranger than we thought.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory has captured massive plasma jets from a supermassive black hole colliding with a mysterious object.
The researchers who made this bizarre discovery say they have no idea what this galactic speed bump could be or why it seems to behave so strangely.
The hidden object lies in the Centaurus A galaxy, an irregular swirl of gas and dust about 12 million light-years from Earth.
What makes Centaurus A so special is the supermassive black hole at its heart, which shoots radiation and matter from 40,000 light years across the entire width of the galaxy.
Using the deepest X-ray images ever taken of the Milky Way, the researchers found a V-shaped patch of bright emission caused by the collision of these jets with an unknown object.
NASA says: “Although researchers have ideas about what is happening, the identity of the object being destroyed is a mystery because it is too far away to see its details, even in images from today’s most powerful telescopes.”
Scientists have made a stunning discovery when they saw an unknown object hit by the plasma beam of a supermassive black hole (pictured)
As black holes collect matter in an accretion disk, some of it is accelerated and shot into space in the form of a huge jet of plasma and radiation (artist’s impression)
When a star more than twenty times the size of our Sun dies and explodes in a supernova, the remaining matter collapses into an extremely dense object called a black hole.
These mysterious voids exert such a strong gravitational pull that nothing, not even light, can escape their pull.
As matter and light fall into the black hole, like water circling a plug hole, they form a huge swirling ring called an accretion disk.
However, not all of that matter ends up past the point of no return, known as the event horizon.
Instead, some of the matter is accelerated along the black holes’ powerful magnetic field lines and shot out of the poles at incredible speeds.
Although scientists know roughly why these jets form, their near-relativistic speed and intense forces make much of their true nature a mystery.
Located relatively close to Earth, Centaurus A has long been the ideal place to observe these mysterious jets in action.
In previous studies, NASA has noticed a series of “jet knots” in Centaurus A’s huge plumes.
The Centaurus A galaxy (pictured) is located 12 million light-years away from Earth and is notable for the supermassive black hole at its heart, which generated a plasma plume spanning 40,000 light-years
Scientists have previously noticed “jet knots,” which appear in images as bright spots of X-rays
These are enormous areas of turbulence that are visible as bright spots in the X-ray spectrum.
But in this latest study, Dr. David Bogensberger, an astrophysicist from the University of Michigan, and his co-authors found a knot that didn’t match the usual patterns.
Dr. Bogensberger and his co-authors write: ‘Near the counter-ray axis we discovered a source with an unusual morphology. We call it C4.’
“It appears that there are two streams of matter flowing away from him at two different angles, forming a ‘V’-like shape behind them.”
The arms of the V are at least about 700 light-years long: 140 times the distance from Earth to the nearest neighboring star.
The V of strong X-rays behind C4 is unusual because all other obstacles in the jet’s path produce only elliptical blobs.
NASA suggests that the mysterious object at the heart of this cosmic wake could be a massive star, alone or with a companion star.
The researchers think that particles in the black hole’s radius could collide with the strong solar winds emitted by this star.
If this were the case, the resulting turbulence would increase the density of the gas in the jet, igniting the X-rays seen in the Chandra images.
However, the unique structure of C4 raises some issues because of this relatively simple explanation.
This study found an object known as C4 that had an unusual V-shaped wake extending behind it. This is completely different from the elliptical patterns usually produced by objects trapped in the jet of a black hole
Scientists think C4’s unique shape could be the product of a massive star. As particles in the jet collide with the star’s solar wind, this compresses the jet and ignites the bright X-rays seen in these images
If there were an object in the jet, astronomers would expect to see an X-ray trail roughly parallel to the direction of the jet, like the wake around a boat moving upstream.
The lower arm of the V does match this image, but the upper arm is more difficult to explain because it is at a much greater angle to the jet.
That means whatever this object is, it could have some very unusual properties that astronomers haven’t noticed anywhere else in the universe.
NASA says: ‘Astronomers are trying to determine why C4 looks so different after contact, but it could be related to the type of object the jet strikes or how directly the jet strikes it.’
But for now, the identity of this strange object remains stubbornly mysterious.