AM 0644-741
Credit X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF/A. Wolter et al; Optical: NASA/STScI
Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to discover a ring of black holes or neutron stars in a galaxy 300 million light years from Earth.
This ring, while not wielding power over Middle Earth, may help
scientists better understand what happens when galaxies smash into one
another in catastrophic impacts.
In this new composite image of the galaxy AM 0644-741 (AM 0644 for short), X-rays from Chandra (purple)
have been combined with optical data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
(red, green, and blue). The Chandra data reveal the presence of very
bright X-ray sources, most likely binary systems powered by either a stellar-mass black hole or neutron star,
in a remarkable ring. The results are reported in a new paper led by
Anna Wolter from INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Milano,
Italy.
Where did the ring of black holes or neutron stars in AM 0644 come
from? Astronomers think that it was created when one galaxy was pulled
into another galaxy by the force of gravity. The first galaxy generated
ripples in the gas of the second galaxy, AM 0644, located in the lower
right. These ripples then produced an expanding ring of gas in AM 0644
that triggered the birth of new stars. The first galaxy is possibly the
one located in the lower left of the image.
The most massive of these fledgling stars will lead short lives — in
cosmic terms — of millions of years. After that, their nuclear fuel is
spent and the stars explode as supernovas
leaving behind either black holes with masses typically between about
five to twenty times that of the Sun, or neutron stars with a mass
approximately equal to that of the Sun.
Some of these black holes or neutron stars have close companion
stars, and siphon gas from their stellar partner. This gas falls towards
the black hole or neutron star, forming a spinning disk like water
circling a drain, and becomes heated by friction. This superheated gas
produces large amounts of X-rays that Chandra can detect.
While a ring of black holes or neutron stars is intriguing in itself,
there is more to the story of AM 0644. All of the X-ray sources
detected in the ring of AM 0644 are bright enough to be classified as
ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). This is a class of objects that
produce hundreds to thousands of times more X-rays than most "normal"
binary systems in which a companion star is in orbit around a neutron
star or black hole. Until recently most astronomers thought that ULXs
generally contained stellar-mass black holes, with the possible presence
in some cases of intermediate-mass black holes
(IMBHs) that contain over a hundred times the mass of the Sun. However,
this thinking was overturned when a few ULXs in other galaxies,
including M82 and M51, were found to contain neutron stars.
Several other explanations besides IMBHs have been suggested for the
intense X-ray emission of ULXs. They include unusually rapid growth of
the black hole or neutron star, or geometrical effects arising from the
funneling of infalling material along magnetic field lines.
The identity of the individual ULXs in AM 0644 is currently unknown.
They may be a mixture of black holes and neutron stars, and it is also
possible that they are all black holes or all neutron stars.
Not all of the X-ray sources in the image are located in the ring of
AM 0644. One of the sources is a rapidly growing black hole that's
located well behind the galaxy at a distance of 9.1 billion light years
from Earth. Another intriguing source detected by Chandra is a growing
supermassive black hole located at the center of the galaxy. In the new
study, the researchers also used Chandra observations to study six other
ring galaxies in addition to AM 0644. A total of 63 sources were
detected in the seven galaxies, and 50 of them are ULXs. The authors see
a larger average number of ULXs per galaxy in these ring galaxies than
in other types of galaxies. Ring galaxies have stimulated the interest
of astronomers because they are ideal testbeds for examining models of
how double stars form, and understanding the origin of ULXs.
The paper describing the study of AM 0644 and its sister ring
galaxies appeared in the August 10, 2018 issue of the Astrophysical
Journal and is available online.
The co-authors of the paper are Antonella Fruscione from the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and
Michela Mapelli from INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova in Padova,
Italy.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages
the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
Fast Facts for AM 0644-741:
Scale: Image is about 3.25 arcmin (280,000 light years) across
Category: Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies, Black Holes
Coordinates (J2000): RA 06h 43m 06.1s | Dec -74° 13´ 35
Constellation: Volans
Observation Date: November 17, 2003
Observation Time: 10 hours
Obs. ID: 3969
Instrument: ACIS
References: Wolter, A. et al, 2018, ApJ, 863,43; arXiv:1806.02746
Color Code: X-ray: purple; Optical: red, green, blue
Distance Estimate: About 300 million light years
Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
