For the first time, NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope has detected the destructive effects of a relativistic jet of matter and energy—a jet from a supermassive black hole—on something material. The jet crashed into some unknown extragalactic object, and the jet then traced a Latin letter “V” in space with arms of 700 light years each. The “Death Star” from a galaxy far, far away is resting—even science fiction writers couldn’t imagine this.
Image source: NASA
The surprise came from the Centaurus A galaxy, which is close to the Milky Way (not to be confused with Alpha Centauri, a star system close to Earth). This is an interesting object in many ways and scientists are keeping a close eye on it. In the Chandra data, scientists saw for the first time the splitting of a relativistic jet from a black hole. Moreover, the separation is also observed in the X-ray range, which would be difficult to expect from the typical interaction of a jet with interstellar gas and dust.
The mysterious object was named C4. Judging by the scattering of the “fragments”, this is a compact object, possibly a star or other large accumulation of mass. According to accepted models, the jet was supposed to hit the object and carry its matter in the direction of the jet. Meanwhile, one arm of the jet went sharply to the side, while the other maintained its direction along the jet. The intrigue still remains. More observations will be needed to try to understand what tragedy played out there in space – 12 million light years from our galaxy.