Swift Studies Gas-Churning Monster Black Holes
Watch as a gas cloud encounters two supermassive black holes. The complex interplay of gravitational and frictional forces causes the cloud to condense and heat. Some of the gas is ejected from the system with each orbit of the black holes.
Credit: F. Goicovic et al. 2016
Music: "Forgotten Fortunes," Magnum Opus [ASCAP] , Universal Production Music
Complete transcript available.
Scientists 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 cloud of gas in the center of a galaxy.
The dual black holes are in the core of a galaxy called 2MASX J21240027+3409114, located 1 billion light-years away in the northern constellation Cygnus. They’re about 16 billion miles (26 billion kilometers) apart, close enough that light only takes a day to travel between them. Together they contain 40 million times the Sun’s mass.
Scientists estimate the black holes complete an orbit every 130 days and will collide and merge in approximately 70,000 years.
AT 2021hdr was first spotted in March 2021 by ZTF (Zwicky Transient Facility) at the Palomar Observatory in California. Since the first flare, ZTF has detected outbursts from AT 2021hdr every 60 to 90 days.
Swift has been observing the source since November 2022 and helped researchers determine that the binary produces oscillations in ultraviolet and X-ray light on the same time scales as ZTF sees them in the visible range.
The science team hypothesizes that AT 2021hdr is the result of the tidal disruption of a gas cloud, one that was bigger than the binary itself. When the cloud encountered the black holes, gravity ripped it apart, forming filaments around the pair, and friction started to heat it. The gas got particularly dense and hot close to the black holes. As the binary orbits, the complex interplay of forces ejects some of the gas from the system on each rotation. These interactions produce the fluctuating light Swift and ZTF observe.
4K frames and video of the side view of the simulation.
Credit: F. Goicovic et al. 2016
4K video and frames of the top view of the simulation.
Credit: F. Goicovic et al. 2016
A pair of monster black holes swirl in a cloud of gas in this artist’s concept of AT 2021hdr, a recurring outburst studied by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Zwicky Transient Facility at Palomar Observatory in California.
Credit: NASA/Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State University)
Alt text: Two black holes are illustrated orbiting in a cloud of gas.
Image description: Two black holes swirl in a sea of blue and turquoise in this illustration. The black holes are in the bottom third of the image, positioned so one is slightly in front and to the right of the other. They each have a small ring of gold material around them.
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. However, individual items should be credited as indicated above.
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Producer
- Scott Wiessinger (eMITS)
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Science writer
- Jeanette Kazmierczak (University of Maryland College Park)
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Artist
- Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State University)
Release date
This page was originally published on Wednesday, November 13, 2024.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, November 12, 2024 at 2:08 PM EST.