Gigantic Galactic Wind Discovered: Researchers Say It is from 13.1 Billion Years Ago

Researchers recently discovered a gigantic galactic wind from a supermassive black hole, shedding light on the evolution of galaxies.

A Big Think report specified, an extremely powerful galactic wind produced by a supermassive black hole 13.1 billion years back has been found by scientists.

They used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array or ALMA in Chile, combining 66 radio telescopes, for the discovery.

This, the report indicated, is the earliest example of this wind type yet spotted that highlights the black holes' role in the galaxies' formation.

The study has shown that galactic winds impact the redistribution of metals around the galaxy. They also affect star formation.

Galaxies and Black Holes Evolving Together

In past studies, researchers have noticed an unexpected proportional association between the mass of a supermassive black hole in the middle of a large galaxy, which can grow up to billions of times more massive compared to the sun, and the mass of the central area of the galaxy, also known as "bulge."

At an initial glance, they may appear obvious, although it is, in fact, quite strange. The reason is that galaxies and black holes' sizes differ by roughly 10 orders of magnitude.

This resulted in the study authors concluding that galaxies and black holes are developing together through coevolution, which evolved some physical interaction because of the galactic wind.

As indicated in ALMA's press release, a galactic wind begins to come into existence when a supermassive black hole is eating up enormous quantities of matter.

Then, it is moved at such a high speed by the gravity of the black hole that it radiates strong energy, which is pushing surrounding matter away, generating the galactic wind.

The paper's lead author, Takuma Izumi, then asked, "When did the galactic winds start existence in the universe?"

Finding an answer to this can result in understanding the manner galaxies and black holes are coevolving, Izumi, a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, said.

Gas Motion Analyzed

The study investigators used the Subaru Telescope of NAOJ to locate more than 100 galaxies that existed over 13 billion years ago, featuring supermassive black holes.

They then used ALMA's high sensitivity, a similar EurekAlert! report said, to examine the gas motion in these galaxies, discovering that dust and carbon of one of them, identified as J1243+0100, released radio waves.

This enabled the scientists to determine the presence of a strong galactic wind, rushing forth from the supermassive black hole at approximately 1,118,468 miles every hour.

The wind's energy, the oldest discovered so far, is quite strong that it is pushing away stellar materials that prevent the formation of stars.

Supporting 'Coevolution' Notion

Remarkably, the bulge's mass in J1243+0100 was discovered to be approximately 30 billion times larger than that of the sun, whereas the mass of the supermassive black hole of the galaxy was approximated to be roughly one percent of that.

The ratio is vitally the same as the black holes' mass ratio to the galaxy in today's universe. To the researchers, this validates how important black holes are in impacting the galaxies' growth, supporting the idea of coevolution from the universe's early period.

Commenting on their finding from the study entitled, "Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs). XIII. Large-scale Feedback and Star Formation in a Low-Luminosity Quasar at z = 7.07 on the Local Black Hole to Host Mass Relation", published in the Astrophysics Journal, Izumi said that their observations support recent "high-precision computer simulations" which have forecasted that coevolutionary associations were in place even at roughly 13 billion years back.

The researchers are now planning to observe in the future a large pool of space objects with the objective of clarifying whether the primordial coevolution seen in the object is a precise image of the general universe at that time or not Izumi commented further.

Related information about galactic winds is shown on The Real MLordandGod's YouTube video below:

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