March 28, 2017 / Source: +European Southern Observatory (ESO) +NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory
ESO’s VLT Views Stars Born in Winds from Supermassive Black Holes
Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have revealed stars forming within powerful outflows of material blasted out from supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies. These are the first confirmed observations of stars forming in this kind of extreme environment. The discovery has many consequences for understanding galaxy properties and evolution.
A UK - led group of European astronomers used the MUSE and X - shooter instruments on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile to study an ongoing collision between two galaxies, known collectively as IRAS F23128 - 5919, that lie around 600 million light - years from Earth. The group observed the colossal winds of material - or outflows - that originate near the supermassive black hole at the heart of the pair’s southern galaxy, and have found the first clear evidence that stars are being born within them.
Such galactic outflows are driven by the huge energy output from the active and turbulent centers of galaxies. Supermassive black holes lurk in the cores of most galaxies, and when they gobble up matter they also heat the surrounding gas and expel it from the host galaxy in powerful, dense winds.
Astronomers have thought for a while that conditions within these outflows could be right for star formation, but no one has seen it actually happening as it’s a very difficult observation, comments team leader Roberto Maiolino from the University of Cambridge. Our results are exciting because they show unambiguously that stars are being created inside these outflows.
Co - author Helen Russell (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK) expands: The stars that form in the wind close to the galaxy center might slow down and even start heading back inwards, but the stars that form further out in the flow experience less deceleration and can even fly off out of the galaxy altogether.