Astronomers have discovered that supermassive black holes have a special mechanism that prevents them from growing.

The black hole at the center of the galaxy is thought to absorb anything that comes close. But new research published in the journal Science suggests that in nearby galaxies, the supermassive black hole pours 97% of its food into space. And this leads to the interruption of the process of starting new stars in this galaxy.

Astronomers using the ALMA radio telescope have made an in-depth study of the central part of the neighboring Circulus galaxy, which is 13 million years from Earth. In particular, they found a region in the center of the galaxy that covers a distance of 32.5 to 325 light years from the central black hole. This object has about 1.7 million suns. As a result of research, scientists found that most of the gas that attracts the black hole does not fall into it, but is released into space.

All the gas attracted by the black hole begins to rotate around it at high speed in the accretion disk. This gas then spirals past the event horizon of the black hole and disappears forever. Black holes are thought to consume everything in contact with them, but the central black hole in the Circulus universe does not.

Every year, this object attracts a mass of gas equal to 20 to 30% of the mass of the Sun. But it turns out that only 3% of this gas enters the black hole and the remaining 97% returns to space. This happens under the influence of radiation emitted by particles that run at high speed in a black hole. In other words, black holes have a special mechanism that protects them from overeating, scientists believe.

Researchers found that gas escaping from black holes in three different streams: ionized gas, atomic gas and molecular gas. Scientists believe that these waters have a negative impact on the clouds of molecular gas where new stars form in galaxies. That is, they destroy these clouds. This may be why fewer stars appear in galaxies with more active black holes than in galaxies where black holes have stopped accreting.

Scientists believe that the gas from the large black hole in the center of the Circulus galaxy prevents the formation of new stars, at least in the center of the galaxy. But it is not known whether these processes affect the formation of new stars and the number of galaxies.

The authors of this paper say that if this process were not self-regulating, there would be a large number of galaxies with a large number of stars. and the Universe. On the other hand, there are different types of black holes in the Universe, and they are different from each other. Therefore, scientists now want to know if there is a similar system, which is in the black hole of the Circulus galaxy and other similar objects. If this is true, then the process of growth of all black holes can be explained in this way with the help of new research.

source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf0569?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D29665975262392863233091040665670793094%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1698935229