Scientists studying a distant galaxy cluster have discovered the biggest explosion seen in the Universe since the Big Bang.
The blast came from a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy hundreds of millions of light-years away.
It released five times more energy than the previous record holder.
Professor Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, said the event was extraordinarily energetic.
“We’ve seen outbursts in the centres of galaxies before but this one is really, really massive,” she said.
“And we don’t know why it’s so big.
“But it happened very slowly–like an explosion in slow motion that took place over hundreds of millions of years.”
The explosion occurred in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster, about 390 million light-years from Earth.
It was so powerful it punched a cavity in the cluster plasma–the super-hot gas surrounding the black hole.
Lead author of the study Dr Simona Giacintucci, from the Naval Research Laboratory in the United States, said the blast was similar to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, which ripped the top off the mountain.
“The difference is that you could fit 15 Milky Way galaxies in a row into the crater this eruption punched into the cluster’s hot gas,” she said.
Professor Johnston-Hollitt said the cavity in the cluster plasma had been seen previously with X-ray telescopes.
But scientists initially dismissed the idea that it could have been caused by an energetic outburst, because it would have been too big.
“People were sceptical because the size of outburst,” she said. “But it really is that. The Universe is a weird place.”
The researchers only realised what they had discovered when they looked at the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster with radio telescopes.
“The radio data fit inside the X-rays like a hand in a glove,” said co-author Dr Maxim Markevitch, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
“This is the clincher that tells us an eruption of unprecedented size occurred here.”
The discovery was made using four telescopes; NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Western Australia and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India.
Professor Johnston-Hollitt, who is the director of the MWA and an expert in galaxy clusters, likened the finding to discovering the first dinosaur bones.
“It’s a bit like archaeology,” she said.
“We’ve been given the tools to dig deeper with low frequency radio telescopes so we should be able to find more outbursts like this now.”
The finding underscores the importance of studying the Universe at different wavelengths, Professor Johnston-Hollitt said.
“Going back and doing a multi-wavelength study has really made the difference here,” she said.
Professor Johnston-Hollitt said the finding is likely to be the first of many.
“We made this discovery with Phase 1 of the MWA, when the telescope had 2048 antennas pointed towards the sky,” she said.
“We’re soon going to be gathering observations with 4096 antennas, which should be ten times more sensitive.”
“I think that’s pretty exciting.”
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MORE INFORMATION
ICRAR
The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) is a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia with support and funding from the State Government of Western Australia.
THE MURCHISON WIDEFIELD ARRAY
The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a low-frequency radio telescope and is the first of four Square Kilometre Array (SKA) precursors to be completed. A consortium of partner institutions from seven countries (Australia, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and China) financed the development, construction, commissioning, and operations of the facility. The MWA consortium is led by Curtin University.
Publication:
‘Discovery of a giant radio fossil in the Ophiuchus Galaxy Cluster’, published in The Astrophysical Journal on February 27th, 2020.
Multimedia:
Available from http://www.icrar.org/kaboom
Here is a link to the imagery X-Ray, Radio, IR on the Chandra Website
https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2020/ophiuchus/
The Big Bang was an expansion, not an explosion.
‘The biggest explosion seen in the Universe since the Big Bang.’ sounds very like the claims of ‘unprecedented’ in Global Warming/Climate Change Alarmism. Let’s just say ‘Big’ or ‘Very Big’ or even ‘Extremely Big’.
“the blast was similar to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, which ripped the top off the mountain.”
I just love astronomy ..
“The universe is a really weird place.”
I love astronomy even more!
The climate of the universe is changing.
“390 million light-years” away.
That’s like in our cosmic backyard kinda close.
And they didn’t really “see” the actual initiating event. They are seeing just the expanding hole left by the shock front from some source; a shockfront through the very diffuse plasma.
Just some ROM stuff:
15 MilkyWays across (in diameter). So that’s roughly 7.5 MW diameters as radius.
Our MW galaxy diameter is estimated at 105K Ly.
7.5x105K Ly = 788,000 Ly radius hole in a galaxy cluster 390 Million Light years away.
Round up to 800 KLy hole radius.
If the shock wave averaged 0.1c, then this explosion started “just” ~8 Million years ago.
But in the article they said, ““But it happened very slowly–like an explosion in slow motion that took place over hundreds of millions of years.””
Even if we use a shock front average velocity of 0.01c ripping outwards, we’re at an age of 80 My ago to get a hole that big in the galaxy cluster plasma, which is still shorter by at least half of the “over hundreds of millions of years.”
Something tells me their attempt to describe this as a “slow-motion” shock wave event in a gargantuan explosive event, an event that makes Type 1a supernovas and Binary Neutron Star kilonovas look like a small firecrackers, is off. So this doesn’t quite add up. There’s probably lots of hand-wavium involved here.
Check out Ben Davidson’s (from Suspicious Observers) caution on this announcement.
https://youtu.be/MXVky76RO48
Start at 2:30, and count to ten.
Fred Hoyle to the rescue !
I envy the field of astronomy–where science-shaking observations are frequent and exciting, constantly pushing new theories and duscussion!
With climate science, on the other hand, we’re told to shut up since it’s all settled–nothing to see here, folks!
I definitely smell a rat, or maybe a whole ship full of rats!
It is claimed as the biggest dent in space. I demur. The biggest dent in space is the 5 mile high statue of Arthur Dent. (Refer to HHGTTG)
Douglas Adams was prescient and funny.
If the explosion came out of the supermassive black hole itself that means…. that it was a faster than light explosion?
Sounds like an inflation event. A mini-universe inside our universe? A universe that we can look at from the outside? That would be interesting.
When I read articles like this I can’t help but wonder how many alien civilizations might have been snuffed out such explosions.
I too love astronomy and cosmology, and have ever since I was a kid. I think I knew the term “ylem” as early as the eight grade.
Here’s something you all might enjoy:
“Deep Field: The impossible Magnitude of Our Universe”
Uh, what about The Big Bang?
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry
https://www.paulsimon.com/track/the-boy-in-the-bubble-3/
Sigh, is every science now hyper hyped. I think the gradual homogenization of broken sociology with science is taking its toll. Second largest after the Big Bang. Unprecedented (err…except for the big bang) but it was a slow one. And Gee strangely comparing it to Mount St. Helens, kinda, sorta. Sheesh. I think climate science made it okay to make models into observations. And feelings into theories that are settled.
Yeah, it seems an exciting event butI have to call BS on the more hysterical aspects of the “discovery” which spoils it a little for me. A sceptic’s life is a tough one these days. Careful, I could get tagged with Astronomy Denier and I’m even a card carrying resident of this universe.
I’ve been wondering this for a while–is there any science that precludes ‘black holes’ from being/containing the missing anti-matter that should have been produced balancing matter following the BB? That sure could produce one big bang if it swallowed something made of matter that was big enough.
BTW–from a geologist’s point of view, and I assume any astronomer’s or astrophysicist’s, the title of this article is pure human hubris. If we, with our puny-and-approaching-zero time-element of existence haven’t seen one–in some 13 billion years of history there haven’t been others? Please.
What caused it ?
Seems to my simple mind that this observation disproves the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
I love these stories that point out just how tiny we are. A little humility inducing reality check from time to time is a good thing.
headline contradicts cosmology…
So what ever happened to Betelgeuse which was supposed to collapse into a ‘supernova’ on Feb 21st? ( 692 years after the actual event)? Did the models screw up again?
Cheers
Mike
If the explosion happened hundreds of light years away, can someone explain how long ago the explosion actually happened?
It is time, the Walrus said, to talk of Hawking’s 2014 report on Black Holes, seriously.
Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes
https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5761
He came at the subject of entropy and black hole event-horizons from the currently popular “information” approach of Quantum Mechanics.
And – the bombshell is that black hole event horizons are ephemeral, chaotic and turbulent.
This observation gives new meaning to “turbulent”.
Ever notice that the more scant the evidence for a theory, the more passionately people hold to it?