Scientists have discovered a supermassive black hole hiding in a ring of cosmic dust. Super big black hole was detected in an active galaxy by European Southern Observatory scientists (THAT).
This galaxy is located about 47 million light years from Earth, in the constellation Cetus. Observatory ESO explained that this discovery has confirmed predictions made about 30 years ago about active galactic nuclei (AGN).
This discovery gives astronomers new insight into the active galactic cores known to be the brightest and most mysterious objects in the universe. “These results lead us to a better understanding of how AGN works,” said Violeta Gámez Rosas, a scientist from the Netherlands in a press release quoted by MPI from the UPI website.
AGN giants are compact regions of space at the center of galaxies and cause them to be much brighter than others. Taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer in northern Chile, these observations shed new light on galaxies that have active galactic nuclei at their cores.
“AGN can also help us better understand the history of the Milky Way harboring a supermassive black hole at its center that may have been active in the past,” added Gámez Rosas, a doctoral candidate at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Editor : El Joyosemito
–
