black hole (Photo : REUTERS)
Astronomers found out rear-end collision of two big blobs of plasma from the black hole, resulting to a cosmic billiard-shot.
The new discovery sheds light about the behavior of energized “light-saber-like" jets, appearing like a zoom-out light out of black holes at speeds several times the speed of light. This is called "superluminal" motion, an optical illusion caused by fast real speed of the plasma.
BBC reported that jets seem like transporting plasma in a confined beam that came from active nucleus of the host galaxy, NGC 3862. Researchers believe that shocks can be produced via collisions within the jet, which eventually accelerate particles and can cause brightness to the regions of colliding plasma.
Eileen Meyer, one of the researchers, said that it was their first time to see an extragalactic jet.
These plasma jets are rarely seen in visible light, and coming from NGC 3862, it is now directed towards our planet. Only Hubble telescope’s highly sensitive imaging abilities can make a solid structure of these jets, according to The Space Reporter.
The jets composed of string-like structure of glowing knots of material, allowing the Hubble to examine it more closely. These knots have a visible speed of seven times the speed of light, catching up with the end of a slower moving knot along the string.
NGC 3862 is an elliptical galaxy which is 260 million light-years from Earth. It is the sixth brightest galaxy and houses the super massive black hole. The black hole is frequently flaring out jets of plasma. Scientists explained that the impact of plasma that happened in the jet was captured by Hubble for about 20 years.
Studying further the collision of two big blobs will reveal more these about these mysterious, spectacular jets.
