According to SciTechDaily, XMM-Newton, ESA’s X-ray telescope, has detected black hole winds that are preventing star formation. 

In February 2024, XMM-Newton observed that ultra-fast winds from a black hole’s accretion disk block X-rays from the corona, the immediate surroundings of the black hole. This can have significant implications for understanding galactic evolution. 

Black holes are places in space where gravity is so strong that light cannot escape. This can happen when a star is dying. Astronomers can detect black holes by watching for their effects on nearby stars and gas. 

XMM-Newton Spacecraft Detects Black Hole Winds Hindering Star Formation. Observations reveal black holes can alter galaxies by ejecting gas, impeding star formation, with significant implications for understanding galactic evolution. Black holes are like temperamental toddlers

Black holes can affect star formation in a few ways:

• Compress gas Black holes can compress surrounding gas and dust, which can promote star formation. 
• Heat gas Black holes can heat surrounding gas, which can suppress star formation. For example, active black holes can blast energy into their host galaxy, heating up and ejecting the galaxy’s gas. 
• Drain gas Without outflows from giant black holes, star formation would happen much faster. This could potentially drain a galaxy of the reservoirs of gas needed to produce new stars. 
• Clear areas Supermassive black holes may clear large bubble-like areas in the outskirts of their host galaxies. When small satellite galaxies travel through these areas, they will form more stars than they otherwise would. 
• Destroy stars The gravitational forces from a massive black hole can destroy a star in a process known as “tidal disruption events”. This causes a flare, often seen in optical and ultraviolet light and X-rays, as the star’s debris is heated up. 

One suggestion is that energy from supermassive black holes drives star-forming gas and dust from galaxies. An alternative is that this energy heats up gas, and because it is cool gas and dust that collapses to form stars, ends star birth this way

Yes, black holes can help certain galaxies form new stars. In 2021, astronomers said that supermassive black holes might bring about new star birth in small satellite galaxies on the outskirts of large galaxies. 

Stars are usually born in nebulae, which are vast clouds of gas and dust in space. As the cloud collapses, the material at the center begins to heat up, forming a protostar. Eventually, a shell of fusion hydrogen will form around the helium filled core. 

Black holes can also trigger star formation. For example, in 2022, the Hubble telescope spotted a black hole “giving birth” to stars in a nearby dwarf galaxy. The stellar newborns are tethered to the black hole by a massive “umbilical cord” made of gas and dust. 

Star birth requires a dense cloud of gas and dust. The stream of gas provided by the black hole actually triggered a fireworks show of star birth as it interacted with the cloud, which led to a cluster of forming stars. The galaxy is located 30 million light-years away in the Pyxis constellation

Stars form when massive clouds of gas and dust collapse due to gravity. This process takes about a million years from the start of the collapse until the star is created

The clouds are called nebulas, and the process is inefficient. Magnetic fields play a role in regulating against gravitational collapse. 

As the cloud gets smaller, it breaks into clumps. Each clump eventually becomes so hot and dense that nuclear reactions begin. When the temperature reaches 10 million degrees Celsius, the clump becomes a new star. 

The first stars are thought to have formed as early as 100 million years after the big bang. 

Depending on their mass, stars can eventually become white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes

In February 2024, XMM-Newton detected that ultra-fast winds from a black hole’s accretion disk are blocking X-rays from the corona. The accretion disk is the swirling material around the black hole that generates the winds. The winds act as a shield, blocking X-ray light from the black hole and its accretion disk. 

The winds are made up of at least three components, each moving at several percent of the speed of light. They last for hundreds of days. 

XMM-Newton is ESA’s X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission-Newton telescope. It has a focal length of 7500 mm, a mirror length of 600 mm, and 58 mirrors. 

X-rays blocked by the windFollow-up observations using ESA’s more sensitive X-ray telescope XMM-Newton revealed what was really happening: Ultra-fast winds coming from the accretion disk were acting like a shroud, blocking out the X-rays sent out from the immediate surroundings of the black hole (called the corona

According to a 2023 ESA announcement, XMM-Newton observations have revealed that black holes can alter galaxies by ejecting gas and hindering star formation. The XMM-Newton space telescope detects repeated outbursts of light from inactive black holes that partially destroy stars. This discovery is unexpected, as black hole outbursts usually only appear once when a black hole consumes a star. 

Black holes emit winds that can drive away a galaxy’s reservoir of molecular gas, which is the raw material needed for stars to form. 

XMM-Newton, also known as the High Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy Mission, is an X-ray space observatory launched by the European Space Agency in 1999. 

Unprecedented ObservationsUntil now, this ultra-fast ‘black hole wind’ had only been detected coming from extremely bright accretion discs, which are at the limit of how much matter they can draw in. This time, XMM-Newton detected ultra-fast wind in a distinctly average galaxy which you could say was ‘only snacking

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