(ORDO NEWS) — Galaxy 3C 297 is located at a distance of about 9.2 billion light-years from Earth and contains a quasar – a supermassive black hole that attracts gas at the center of the galaxy and sets in motion powerful jets of matter visible in radio waves.
This result, from NASA‘s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Gemini International Observatory, could push the boundaries of how fast astronomers think galaxies grew in the early universe.
In some respects, 3C 297 has the properties of a galaxy cluster, a giant structure containing hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies.
X-ray data from Chandra show a large amount of gas heated to millions of degrees – a hallmark of a cluster of galaxies.
Astronomers have also discovered a jet from a quasar, which was seen with the Carl G. Jansky Very Large Array and which curved as it interacted with its environment.
Finally, the Chandra data suggests that another quasar jet slammed into the gas around it, creating an X-ray “hot spot”.
These are typical characteristics of galaxy clusters. However, data from the Gemini Observatory show that 3C 297 contains only one galaxy. Nineteen galaxies that appear close to 3C 297 in the Gemini image
In this new composite image, Chandra data is in purple, VLA data is in red, and Gemini data is in green. Also included are visible light and infrared data from the Hubble Space Telescope (blue and orange, respectively).
The lone galaxy 3C 297 and the position of its supermassive black hole, as well as the black hole’s jets, X-ray hot spot, and hot gas, are identified in the labeled version of the image.
The field of view of this image is too small to show any of the 19 galaxies that are not at the same distance as 3C 297.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.