New research from A team from the Harvard Center for Astrophysics suggests that the large Magellanic cloud, a dwarf galaxy close to the Milky Way, hosts a gravitational structure of hundreds of thousands of times the mass of the sun: a potential super -supermassive hole.
The most widely accepted theory of galactic evolution maintains that supermassive black holes are only found in the largest galaxies, such as the Milky Way. So far, there was no reason to imagine that a small group like the large Magellanic cloud could host one. When telescopes or X -ray observatories have been formed on small clusters like the large magellanic cloud, they found no signature associated with the activity of the black hole.
But then, the hypervelocity stars. For almost 20 years, astronomers have spotted accelerating travel stars with enough acceleration to be ejected from their own galaxies. While a traditional star moves around 100 kilometers per second, a star of hypervelocity moves up to 10 times faster. Experts think that these stars appear by being “catapulted outwards” by a supermassive gravitational structure under the mechanism of the hills – this is a system of binary stars interacts with a black hole, with a star captured by The black hole and the other distant from it.
In the Milky Way itself, there are stars of hypervelocity which are probably from here. Studies suggest that they have been accelerated by the Sagittarius A *, the supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy. But at least 21 stars of hypervelocity detected are compatible with a black supermassive hole but cannot be linked to the intrinsic activity of the Milky Way. In the team’s simulations, it is plausible that these stars come rather from the large Magellanic cloud.
For the team, led by Jiwon Jesse Han, this is one of the first major evidence of the presence of a supermassive black hole in our neighboring dwarf galaxy. According to the initial calculations of the team, this black hole structure could be between 251,000 and 1 million solar masses. Its average mass would be 600,000 times the size of the sun.
The study– which is currently in pre -impression but must be published in the magazine Astrophysique – used data from the GAIA mission of the European Space Agency, whose aim is to map millions of stars to calculate their movement.
There could of course be other explanations of the phenomenon. The stars escaping from their galaxies could also come from a supernova or any other energy mechanism powerful enough to eject them. The authors of the article explain, however, that this does not seem to be the case with the hypervelocity stars which seem to come from the large Magellanic cloud.
The large Magellanic cloud is an irregular galaxy in orbit around the milky path, as well as other clusters of dwarf stars, such as sagittarius, Carine or Draco. It is 163,000 light years from the earth and has a diameter of around 14,000 light years. Astronomers believe that in the distant future – in approximately 2.4 billion years – the big Magellanic cloud and the Milky Way will merge into a single larger group, as well as other larger structures, such as the galaxy of Andromeda. Experts believe that the merger process will be slow and, on a planetary scale, will not be a problem.
This story originally appeared on Cable EN ESPAñol and was translated from Spanish.
