Sleeping supermassive black holes awakened briefly by shredded stars
March 26, 2024
Imagine walking through the mall and seeing babies everywhere you looked. It would be a strange experience in part because, naturally, a sample of the population should include people at every stage of life. Now imagine that instead of looking at people in the mall, you are an astronomer observing galaxies in space. Perhaps these youngsters are not babies at all, but something different entirely.
A new investigation into an obscure class of galaxies known as Compact Symmetric Objects, or CSOs, has revealed that the objects are not entirely what they seem. CSOs are active galaxies that host supermassive black holes at their cores. Out of these monstrous black holes spring two jets traveling in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light. But in comparison to other galaxies that boast fierce jets, these jets do not extend out to great distances—they are much more compact. For many decades, astronomers suspected that CSOs were simply young and that their jets would eventually travel out to greater distances.
Now, reporting in three different papers in The Astrophysical Journal, a team of researchers led by Caltech has concluded that CSOs are not young but rather lead relatively short lives.
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