Two studies led by researchers from the University of Cambridge shed light on the evolution of galaxies by taking a closer look at quasars, peering back close to 13 billion years ago to a time when the universe was less than 10 percent of its size now.
Some of the most luminous objects in the entire universe, quasars rely on supermassive black holes for power. Fueled by black holes with the same mass as a billion suns, they spit out bursts of cold gas going as fast as 6,562 feet per second, covering distances of close to 200,000 light-years. This was farther than what has ever been observed before.
Thanks to combining data from supercomputer simulations and powerful radio telescopes, researchers were able to figure out how the cold gas from a quasar could accelerate that fast. Apparently, it's all the doing of the supermassive black holes powering quasars, first heating gas to tens of millions of degrees which leads to pressure building up. Then as the pressure is released, it pushes hot gas into the galaxy, cooling it along the way.
Researchers from the first study were able to observe the action of heating, releasing and cooling gas and it is through these observations that the researchers from the second study were able to come up with a theoretical but detailed model of how gas flows out from a quasar. The first study was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics while the second one was released through the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Working from the IRAM Plateau De Bure interferometer, researchers were able to gather data at the millimeter band, allowing emissions from cold gas, the main fuel for the formation of stars and primary ingredient for galaxies, to be observed.
The studies were supported by the European Research Council, the Isaac Newton Trust and the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. Through the High Performance Computing Service at the University of Cambridge, which is a part of the STFC's DiRAC supercomputer facility, researchers were able to run computer simulations.
In 2014, quasars were observed to have lined up, with supermassive black holes in several ones aligning parallel to each other. Researchers found this strange as quasars are billions of light-years away from each other but at the same time believed that the event was not the result of mere chance.
