Black holes are sometimes not visible due to dusty quasars. Experts admitted in a new study that they didn't expect supermassive black holes emitting powerful lights to be hidden in the heart of star-birthing galaxies.
Dusty Quasars Can Hide Supermassive Black Holes
A team of researchers from Durham University conducted a study by observing 600 dusty quasars. They learned clouds of dust can obscure quasars in galaxies going through extreme bouts of star formation, a process called "starburst galaxies."
Supermassive black hole-powered quasars produce some of the strongest and brightest light emissions in the cosmos. These emissions frequently surpass the combined luminosity of all the stars in the surrounding galaxy. The emissions are produced when nearby matter is heated and torn apart by black holes, which then consume some of it and channel the rest into jets that are propelled from their poles at speeds close to light.
However, it can be challenging to view the quasars from Earth despite this activity. The gas and dust from nearby galaxies can block out light from these feeding cosmic titans and the radiation that shoots out from them.
It was previously believed that the only way galaxies could effectively conceal quasars was if they had a dense dust cloud, or torus, near the supermassive black hole that powers them. The new study reveals another way some galaxies may "bury" quasars with the farther-off matter.
Research leader Carolina Andonie, a scientist with Durham University's Center for Extragalactic Astronomy in the United Kingdom, says that light from quasars also interacts with material farther out in the host galaxy, contrary to their previous assumption that most of this interaction was with material feeding the central super black hole.
"This quasar-blocking dust was actually a surprise. We were not expecting to observe this," Andonie added.
The study discovered that these starburst galaxies, which are galaxies that create a massive quantity of stars per year than 100 or even 200 stars like our sun-are more likely to host quasars that are shrouded by enormous volumes of gas and dust. In these situations, the quasar's light cannot escape because of the galaxy's massive gas concentration and dust-forming stars.
The study could help experts understand how the galaxy grows. However, more work is needed to confirm the results and connect the dusty quasars with starburst galaxies.
Black Hole Sound Revealed
Scientists are into black holes because they could be the key to "quantum gravity, and they can help test the fundamental theories concerning the universe's operation.
Two decades ago, sound waves from a black hole 250 million light-years away were recovered by scientists. Due to the amount of gas enveloping the supermassive black hole, the sound waves are currently imperceptible.
The waves are much below the human hearing threshold and contain the lowest note ever recorded by humans. The sound waves from the black hole at the center of the Perseus cluster of galaxies had to be transposed up 57 and 58 octaves for humans to hear them.
Like many space waves transformed into audio frequencies, the final results are disturbing. The dark hole appeared furious, and the sound was chilling and eerie.
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