SDSS 1430+1339
Credit X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Cambridge/G. Lansbury et al;
Optical: NASA/STScI/W. Keel et al.
Fancy a cup of cosmic tea? This one isn't as calming as the ones on
Earth. In a galaxy hosting a structure nicknamed the "Teacup," a
galactic storm is raging.
The source of the cosmic squall is a supermassive black hole
buried at the center of the galaxy, officially known as SDSS 1430+1339.
As matter in the central regions of the galaxy is pulled toward the
black hole, it is energized by the strong gravity and magnetic fields
near the black hole. The infalling material produces more radiation than all the stars in the host galaxy. This kind of actively growing black hole is known as a quasar.
Located about 1.1 billion light years
from Earth, the Teacup's host galaxy was originally discovered in
visible light images by citizen scientists in 2007 as part of the Galaxy
Zoo project, using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Since then,
professional astronomers using space-based telescopes have gathered
clues about the history of this galaxy with an eye toward forecasting
how stormy it will be in the future. This new composite image contains X-ray data from Chandra (blue) along with an optical view from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (red and green).
The "handle" of the Teacup is a ring of optical and X-ray light
surrounding a giant bubble. This handle-shaped feature, which is located
about 30,000 light-years from the supermassive black hole, was likely
formed by one or more eruptions powered by the black hole. Radio emission — shown in a separate composite image with the optical data — also outlines this bubble, and a bubble about the same size on the other side of the black hole.
Previously, optical telescope observations showed that atoms in the
handle of the Teacup were ionized, that is, these particles became
charged when some of their electrons were stripped off, presumably by
the quasar's strong radiation in the past. The amount of radiation
required to ionize the atoms was compared with that inferred from
optical observations of the quasar. This comparison suggested that the
quasar's radiation production had diminished by a factor of somewhere
between 50 and 600 over the last 40,000 to 100,000 years. This inferred
sharp decline led researchers to conclude that the quasar in the Teacup
was fading or dying.
New data from Chandra and ESA's XMM-Newton mission are giving astronomers an improved understanding of the history of this galactic storm. The X-ray spectra (that is, the amount of X-rays over a range of energies) show that the quasar is heavily obscured by gas. This implies that the quasar is producing much more ionizing radiation than indicated by the estimates based on the optical data alone, and that rumors of the quasar's death may have been exaggerated. Instead the quasar has dimmed by only a factor of 25 or less over the past 100,000 years.
The Chandra data also show evidence for hotter gas within the bubble,
which may imply that a wind of material is blowing away from the black
hole. Such a wind, which was driven by radiation from the quasar, may
have created the bubbles found in the Teacup.
Astronomers have previously observed bubbles of various sizes in elliptical galaxies,
galaxy groups and galaxy clusters that were generated by narrow jets
containing particles traveling near the speed of light, that shoot away
from the supermassive black holes. The energy of the jets dominates the
power output of these black holes, rather than radiation.
In these jet-driven systems, astronomers have found that the power
required to generate the bubbles is proportional to their X-ray
brightness. Surprisingly, the radiation-driven Teacup quasar follows
this pattern. This suggests radiation-dominated quasar systems and their
jet-dominated cousins can have similar effects on their galactic
surroundings.
A study describing these results was published in the March 20, 2018 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available online.
The authors are George Lansbury from the University of Cambridge in
Cambridge, UK; Miranda E. Jarvis from the Max-Planck Institut für
Astrophysik in Garching, Germany; Chris M. Harrison from the European
Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany; David M. Alexander from
Durham University in Durham, UK; Agnese Del Moro from the
Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik in Garching, Germany;
Alastair Edge from Durham University in Durham, UK; James R. Mullaney
from The University of Sheffield in Sheffield, UK and Alasdair Thomson
from the University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
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 SDSS J1430+1339:
Scale: Image is about 16 arcsec (85,000 light years) across
Category: Quasars & Active Galaxies, Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Coordinates (J2000): RA 14h 30m 29s | Dec +13° 39´ 11.79"
Constellation: Boötes
Observation Date: April 19, 2016
Observation Time: 13 hours 26 minutes
Obs. ID: 18149
Instrument: ACIS
References: Lansbury, G. et al. 2018. ApJ Letters, 856, 1; arXiv:1803.00009
Color Code: X-ray: Blue; Optical: Red, Green
Distance Estimate: About 1.1 billion light years
Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
