{"id":32479,"date":"2024-11-13T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/astrofisicamas.cl\/?p=32479"},"modified":"2024-11-13T15:09:02","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T15:09:02","slug":"descubren-agujeros-negros-gemelos-nubegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/astrofisicamas.cl\/en\/descubren-agujeros-negros-gemelos-nubegas\/","title":{"rendered":"Astr\u00f3nomas en Chile descubren monstruosos agujeros negros que perturban una nube de gas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A pair of monstrous black holes swirl in a cloud of gas in this concept art from AT 2021hdr, a recurring outburst studied by NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) observations<\/em> ZTF del Observatorio Palomar en California. Image credit: NASA\/Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State University)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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An international group of astronomers, using observations from NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, have discovered for the first time the signal from a pair of monster black holes disrupting a gas cloud at the center of a galaxy.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"It's a very strange event, called AT 2021hdr<\/strong>which we see increasing in brightness every few months,\" he said. Lorena Hern\u00e1ndez-Garc\u00eda<\/strong>, astrof\u00edsica del millennium institute of astrophysics<\/strong> <\/a>(MAS) and the TITANS Millennium Nucleus<\/strong><\/a>in Chile. \"We believe that a cloud of gas enveloped the black holes. As they orbit around each other, the black holes interact with the cloud, disturbing and consuming its gas. This produces an oscillating pattern in the light emitted by the system.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A paper on AT 2021hdr, led by Hern\u00e1ndez-Garc\u00eda, has just been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This twin black hole binary system is at the center of a galaxy called 2MASX J21240027+3409114, located one billion light-years away in the northern constellation Cygnus. <\/strong>The pair is separated by about 26 billion kilometers, close enough for light to take only one day to travel between them. Together they contain 40 million times the mass of the Sun.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists estimate that black holes complete an orbit every 130 days and will collide and merge in approximately 70,000 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AT 2021hdr <\/strong>was detected for the first time in March 2021 by the ZTF (the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) observations<\/a><\/em>) at the Palomar Observatory in California. It was identified as a potentially interesting source by ALeRCE <\/a><\/strong>(Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events team<\/em>). This Chilean broker combines artificial intelligence tools with human expertise to report events in the night sky to the astronomical community, using the large amount of data collected by survey programs such as the ZTF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Although the first flash was originally thought to be a supernova, the outbursts in 2022 made us think of other explanations,\" said co-author Alejandra Mu\u00f1oz-Arancibia<\/strong>, member of the ALeRCE team and astrophysicist of the MAS and the Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM)<\/a><\/strong>. \"Each subsequent event has helped us refine the model of what we believe is happening in the system.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZTF ha detectado estallidos de AT 2021hdr cada 60 a 90 d\u00edas desde el primer destello. Hern\u00e1ndez-Garc\u00eda, quien tambi\u00e9n es investigadora del Instituto de F\u00edsica y Astronom\u00eda de la Universidad de Valpara\u00edso<\/a><\/strong>and his team have been observing the source with Swift since November 2022. Swift helped them determine that the system produces oscillations in ultraviolet and X-ray light on the same time scales that the ZTF observes them on in the visible range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Los investigadores analizaron distintos escenarios que dieran explicaci\u00f3n a lo que mostraban los datos. Inicialmente, pensaron que la se\u00f1al podr\u00eda ser el subproducto de una actividad normal en el centro gal\u00e1ctico. Luego consideraron que un evento de disrupci\u00f3n de marea \u2014la destrucci\u00f3n de una estrella que se acerc\u00f3 demasiado a uno de los agujeros negros\u2014 podr\u00eda ser la causa.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finalmente, optaron por otra posibilidad: la disrupci\u00f3n de marea de una nube de gas, una que era m\u00e1s grande que el sistema binario de agujeros negros.<\/strong> Cuando la nube se encontr\u00f3 con ellos, la gravedad la desgarr\u00f3, formando filamentos alrededor del par y la fricci\u00f3n comenz\u00f3 a calentarla. Adem\u00e1s, el gas se volvi\u00f3 particularmente denso y caliente. A medida que el sistema binario orbita, la compleja interacci\u00f3n de fuerzas expulsa parte del gas del sistema en cada rotaci\u00f3n. Estas interacciones producen las fluctuaciones que Swift y ZTF observaron en forma de oscilaciones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hern\u00e1ndez-Garc\u00eda and his team plan to continue observations of AT 2021hdr to better understand the system and refine their models. They are also interested in studying its host galaxy, which is currently merging with another nearby galaxy, an event first reported in their paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"As we approach the 20th anniversary of Swift<\/strong><\/a>It's amazing to see all the new science that continues to help the community achieve,\" he said. S. Bradley Cenko, Swift's principal investigator in the <\/strong>NASA Goddard Space Flight Center<\/strong> <\/a>in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. \"There is still much it has to teach us about our cosmos, which is constantly changing.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goddard manages the Swift mission in collaboration with Penn State, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Northrop Grumman Space Systems in Dulles, Virginia. Other partners include the University of Leicester and the Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the United Kingdom, the Brera Observatory in Italy and the Italian Space Agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conce more of the publication:
Journal: https:\/\/www.aanda.org\/10.1051\/0004-6361\/202451305<\/a>\u00a0
DOI: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1051\/0004-6361\/202451305 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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