鈥淲e鈥檙e talking wind speeds of 20 percent the speed of light, which is more than 200 million kilometers an hour. That鈥檚 equivalent to a category 77 hurricane,鈥� says Jesse Rogerson, a Ph.D. student at York University in Canada. 鈥淎nd we have reason to believe that there are quasar winds that are even faster.鈥�
Rogerson led this research as part of this Ph.D. thesis. The team of researchers included scientists at Humboldt State University, Pennsylvania State University and Erciyes University (Turkey). Their findings were published today in the .. Astronomers have known about the existence of quasar winds since the late 1960s. At least one in four quasars have them. Quasars are the disks of hot gas that form around supermassive black holes at the center of massive galaxies.
鈥淎s matter spirals toward a black hole, some of it is blown away by the heat and light of the quasar. These are the winds that we are detecting,鈥� says York University Associate Professor Patrick Hall, who is Rogerson鈥檚 supervisor.
Barely larger than the Earth鈥檚 orbit around the sun and much hotter than the sun鈥檚 surface, quasars generate so much light and heat that they (unlike the hundreds of billions of stars in galaxies that surround quasars) can be seen across the observable universe. Still, quasars remain a mystery.
鈥淨uasars might be a phase that some, if not all, massive galaxies go through, like adolescence,鈥� says Humboldt State Astronomy & Physics Professor Paola Rodriguez Hidalgo. 鈥淲e know quasars are there, but we are not sure how they interact with the galaxies around them. That is why these extreme winds are so interesting.鈥�
Rogerson and his team used data from a large survey of the sky known as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to identify new outflows from quasars. After spotting about 300 examples, they selected about 100 for further exploration, collecting data with the Gemini Observatory鈥檚 twin telescopes in Hawaii and Chile.
"We not only confirmed this fastest-ever ultraviolet wind, but also discovered a new wind in the same quasar moving more slowly, at only 140 million kilometers an hour," says Hall. "We plan to keep watching this quasar to see what happens next."Much of this research is aimed at better understanding outflows from quasars and why they happen.
鈥淲e suspect that quasars and their host galaxies form and evolve together, and these winds might be the key connecting them,鈥� says Rodriguez Hidalgo. 鈥淔rom what we know, as big galaxies form, they should be making far more stars than what we actually observe. So something鈥攎aybe these winds鈥攕tops galaxies from producing too many stars.鈥�
This research was supported by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Government of Ontario, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, and the National Science Foundation.
About York UniversityYork University is known for championing new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our 52,000 students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-discipline programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities.
York students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world鈥檚 most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. York U is an internationally recognized research university 鈥� our 11 faculties and 24 research centers have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide.
RSS