PBC J2333.9-2343 is a large galaxy at a distance of about 4 million light years, previously classified as
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are black holes in the nuclei of other galaxies. They accrete matter and spew out powerful jets of high-energy particles known as relativistic jets.
Remarkably, the speed of jets from this supermassive black hole almost reaches the speed of light.
However, it turned out that this object shifted the angleby 90 degrees and began to point directly at the Earth. Such a sharp turn puzzled physicists. They made many observations and reclassified the galaxy as a blazar. The results of the study were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Blazars are a class of extragalactic objects of highluminosity, active galactic nuclei with relativistic jets directed towards the observer. Like all quasars, blazars are associated with a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.
Galaxy PBC J2333.9-2343 is the bright spot at the center of this image taken by the University of Hawaii Institute of Astronomy as part of the Pan-STARRS survey. Image courtesy of the University of Hawaii Institute of Astronomy
“Our hypothesis was thatThe relativistic jet of its supermassive black hole changed its direction, and to confirm this idea, we had to make many observations,” explains lead author Lorena Hernandez-Garcia, an astrophysicist at the Millennium Institute for Astrophysics.
Hernandez-Garcia and colleagues observed PBC J2333.9-2343 in almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays. It turned out that this galaxy had characteristics typical of blazars: it periodically increased in brightness and sometimes dimmed, like a blazar; it also had similar jets. Thus, they concluded that the object was most likely a blazar.
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