MAQ Magazine n. 14 / September 2019
The dragging takes place at a distance from the black hole that goes from tens to hundreds of light years. The UFO gradually pushes interstellar matter away from the central regions of the galaxy, freeing these areas from the gas and thus slowing down the growth of matter around the supermassive black hole. This process, already foreseen by the models, but never before observed in its three phases.
According to the scientists, through the outflows the supermassive black holes transfer their energy into the surrounding environment, gradually wiping out the gas from the central regions of the galaxy, which could then stop star formation. And, indeed, today galaxies produce stars at a much lower rate than they did in the early stages of their evolution.
The key factor that distinguished the three types of outflows is the unprecedented energy resolution of Xmm-Newton. In the future, with new and more powerful observatories like Athena, ESA's Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics, astronomers will be able to observe hundreds of thousands of supermassive black holes, detecting the outflows with great ease. A hundred times more sensitive than Xmm-Newton, Athena should be launched in 2030.
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