An international team of scientists, led by researcher Annelise Audibert, has discovered the perfect specimen for
The teacup is a radio-quiet quasar,located 1.3 billion light years from Earth. In its central region (about 3,300 light-years in size) there is a compact and young radio jet, which is characterized by a slight inclination relative to the disk of the galaxy.
Teacup Galaxy. Photo: NASA, ESA, W. Keel (University of Alabama), and the Galaxy Zoo Team
Using observations madeIn the Chilean desert, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have characterized cold, dense gas in the galaxy's central region in an unprecedented level of detail. In particular, they discovered the emission of carbon monoxide molecules, which can only exist under certain conditions of density and temperature. Based on these observations, scientists discovered that the compact jet, despite its low power, not only clearly disrupts the distribution of gas and heats it, but also accelerates it in an unusual way. Surprisingly, less powerful jets, such as those produced in “radio-quiet” galaxies, can cause more damage to the environment than very strong ones.
Compact radiojet in the center of the Tea Room galaxythe cup blows with a sideways turbulent wind in the cold dense gas, as predicted by the simulation. Credit: HST/ALMA/VLA/M. Meenakshi / D. Mukherjee / A. Audibert
When matter falls into the supermassive blackholes in the centers of galaxies, it releases huge amounts of energy - this is how active galactic nuclei (or AGNs) appear. Some AGN release some of this energy in the form of jets that can be detected in the radio range and which move at speeds close to the speed of light - radio jets. As they move through the galaxy, the jets collide with the clouds and gas that surround them. In some cases they push the material away in the form of wind. However, what conditions preferentially cause these winds to blow gas out of galaxies is still poorly understood.
The influence of jets on the contents of galaxies such asstars, dust and gas play an important role in the evolution of cosmic objects. The most powerful radio jets, born in “radio-loud” galaxies, are responsible for radically changing the fate of galaxies. This is because they heat up the gas, preventing the formation of new stars and the growth of galaxies. Computer simulations of relativistic jets penetrating disk galaxies predict that they change the shape of the surrounding gas, blowing bubbles as they penetrate further into the galaxy. In the end, the study showed that the compact radio jet at the center of the Teacup galaxy is blowing as predicted by modeling.
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On the cover: the Herbig-Haro object is called HH111, photo: ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Nisini