• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

How Supermassive Black Holes Shape Their Galaxies’ Chemistry

September 18, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

A study of the active supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the heart of a relatively nearby galaxy has confirmed the suspicion that these objects can change the distribution of molecules far from the galactic core. Although we don’t yet know what part the SMBH at the heart of our own galaxy played, the discovery raises the prospect some of the chemicals that allowed life to form on Earth are the products of activity over 26,000 light years away.

Most of the elements that compose the Earth and other planets are the products of exploding stars, be they supernovas or kilonovas. How those elements come together to form molecules, even before planets have formed, is something we’re just starting to understand. 

Advertisement

The clouds of dust between us and the heart of the galaxy make it difficult to study the influence of our own SMBH, Sagittarius A*, so a team led by Dr Taku Nakajima of Nagoya University studied Messier 77 instead.

Messier 77 is 2,000 times further from us than Sagittarius A*, and our view of its immediate surroundings is also highly interrupted. However, it’s much easier to study the radiation from a little further out, seeking the tell-tale lines that indicate the presence and abundance of specific molecules. At 51.4 million light years away, Messier 77 is also one of the closest galaxies with an active SMBH, that is one that is feeding rapidly on stars, creating a bright accretion disk and powerful jets. 

The team used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) to map the distribution of 23 molecules throughout Messier 77. They found the powerful jets shooting out from Messier 77’s SMBH influence the distribution. Higher concentrations of HCN, CN, and SiO coincide with locations other studies have identified as hotspots for the jets. On the other hand, carbon monoxide is less common around the jets, indicating some process is causing it to break down. 

The authors attribute the extra HCN and SiO to; “High-temperature environments resulting from strong shocks.”

Advertisement

The presence, or relative absence, of these molecules in the gas clouds from which stars form would influence their protoplanetary disks, and therefore the planets that form from them.

Currently, the molecules identified are concentrated in the circumnuclear disk (CND). Even if life gets started here, prospects for technological civilizations are almost nil: stars are packed so tightly that close approaches could cause cosmic bombardments, creating frequent mass extinctions. However, with time, molecules from the CND may disperse through the galaxy, reaching more peaceful locations such as our own.

Although only a small proportion of galaxies have active SMBHs at any one time, it is thought activity can turn on and off,  so it is likely a galaxy such as our own has had an active center at times in its past. It’s already known that active SMBHs can have a big impact on their galaxies by temporarily quenching star formation, but this work suggests their role could be influential in subtler ways.

Messier 77 is also known as the Squid Galaxy and looks a lot like the Milky Way would if seen from a similar distance.

Advertisement

The papers are published open-access, both in the Astrophysical Journal (here and here)

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Soccer – FIFA backs down on threat to fine Premier clubs who play South American players
  2. U.S. House passes abortion rights bill, outlook poor in Senate
  3. Two children killed in missile strikes on Yemen’s Marib – state news agency
  4. We’ve Breached Six Of The Nine “Planetary Boundaries” For Sustaining Human Civilization

Source Link: How Supermassive Black Holes Shape Their Galaxies’ Chemistry

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Anyone Know What These Marine “Y-Larvae” Grow Into? Because Scientists Have No Clue
  • C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) Closest Earth Approach Is Next Month – Will We See It With The Naked Eye?
  • In 2013, A Volcanic Eruption Wiped Out Life On This Remote Island. Then, Somehow, Plants Reemerged
  • 1-Year-Old Orca Takes Out A Big Fat Seal In This Award-Winning – And Extremely Badass – Photo
  • Saturn And Neptune Will Reach Their Brightest In Days – And Look For Saturn’s Temporary Beauty Spot
  • Reindeer Bring A Gift Greater Than Any Of Santa’s – Hope Of A Stable Climate
  • If Deep-Sea Pressure Can Crush A Human Body, How Do Deep-Sea Creatures Not Implode?
  • Meet Ned: The Lonely Lefty Snail Looking For Love
  • “America Will Lead The Next Giant Leap”: NASA Announces New Milestone In Hunt For Exoplanets
  • What Did Neanderthals Sound Like?
  • One Star System Could Soon Dazzle Us Twice With Nova And Supernova Explosions
  • Unethical Experiments: When Scientists Really Should Have Stopped What They Were Doing Immediately
  • The First Humans Were Hunted By Leopards And Weren’t The Apex Predators We Thought They Were
  • Earth’s Passage Through The Galaxy Might Be Written In Its Rocks
  • What Is An Einstein Cross – And Why Is The Latest One Such A Unique Find?
  • If We Found Life On Mars, What Would That Mean For The Fermi Paradox And The Great Filter?
  • The Longest Living Mammals Are Giants That Live Up To 200 Years In The Icy Arctic
  • Entirely New Virus Detected In Bat Urine, And It’s Only The 4th Of Its Kind Ever Isolated
  • The First Ever Full Asteroid History: From Its Doomed Discovery To Collecting Its Meteorites
  • World’s Oldest Pachycephalosaur Fossil Pushes Back These Dinosaurs’ Emergence By 15 Million Years
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version