Jakarta – If you ask where the hottest place in the universe is, the sun will probably come to mind. It turns out that researchers have found a place hotter than the Sun.
Launch detikINET, the hottest place in the universe is Quasar 3C273 which is the brightest region around a supermassive black hole. Even the Sun, which has the hottest temperature in the Solar System, is nothing compared to Quasar 3C273.
It is known that the surface of the Sun has a temperature of 5,500 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, Quasar 3C273 has a temperature of around 10 trillion degrees Celsius.
Cause of Very Hot Quasar 3C273
Daniel Palumbo, a member of the research group called the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, explained that the size of a supermassive black hole continues to grow each time. This is because black holes feed on gas.
The more black holes eat gas, the object will accommodate relativistic jets or very large beams of material. This relativistic jet also pushes the black hole close to the speed of light with very hot temperatures.
Meanwhile, Quasar 3C273 shines brightly around the black hole. When calculated the distance is 2.4 billion light years from Earth.
Although the Greenbank Observatory in West Virginia estimates that the place has a temperature of 10 trillion degrees Celsius, Palumbo said there is no certainty about this temperature estimate.
Supermassive black holes act like the Sun at the center of most galaxies. The size is very large just like its name. In the Milky Way galaxy, the supermassive black hole is named Sagittarius A*. This object has a mass millions of times greater than the mass of the Sun.
Like other black holes, Quasar 3C273 has a very strong gravitational pull. As a result, not a single object, not even light, can escape its grip.
“When molecules are sucked into the black hole they move at high speeds which produce friction. This friction can cause temperatures of trillions of degrees Celsius. However, this temperature is only increased by three. The strong magnetic field of the black hole turns some of the nearby matter into a relativistic glow that can shot into space as far as millions of light years,” Palumbo explained as quoted by Live Science.
Are there other Hottest Places in the Universe?
Regarding the question ‘where is the hottest place in the universe’, Palumbo’s colleague Koushik Chatterjee said the answer depended on when the question was asked. Although, he still agrees that black holes are probably the hottest places.
“However, wherever there are catastrophic events. That’s where the hottest place is,” he said.
He gave an example, when two large celestial bodies collided. The collision will cause an explosion that can produce very high temperatures.
“For example, two neutron stars (collapsed cores) collide with each other. The collision can produce temperatures of up to 800 billion degrees Celsius. This was described in a study published in the journal Nature Physics in 2009,” added Chatterjee.
When a black hole collides with a neutron star, this event can also result in very high temperatures. However, like a flash of light, this cosmic collision only happened in the twinkling of an eye.
Measures the temperature of the universe
Regarding Chatterjee’s explanation, Palumbo stated that it is indeed difficult to determine the hottest place in the universe. Because temperature cannot be measured with a thermometer.
Scientists only measure the black hole’s energy through bright emitters, radio waves, and X-rays. Richard Kelley, senior solar system studies scientist at NASA explains the process.
Initially the light from the object is caught in NASA’s telescopes, the light then goes down and enters a sensor that can measure the energy or wavelength of the radiation. The results of that measurement will create a spectrum which must then be analyzed to deduce the temperature.
In the future, scientists will have a future X-ray observatory. This is called the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM).
Both will help scientists measure high-temperature gases in space more accurately. When this tool is developed, the exact temperature of quasar 3C273 will probably be known.
“I think it’s fair to say that right now, the tools we have for understanding the temperature of the material around supermassive black holes are limited but will also be expanding rapidly,” Palumbo concluded.
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2023-08-27 12:30:31
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