A recent survey held by a team of scientists has confirmed a link between the presence of super massive black holes and the breakthrough of powerful jet material after the merging of two galaxies.
The study based on data collected by Hubble telescope suggests that such galactic jets are likely to be the product of merging of galaxies as most galactic jets studied by the researchers were produced in the galaxies which had either underwent merging or the ones which were undergoing merging. However, the researchers claim that merging of galaxies does not always lead to birth of galactic jets.
The team studied a large number of galaxies with extremely luminous center known as the active galactic nuclei (AGNs) which are a result of massive rotation of strongly heated matter around a black hole which are later consumed up. The jets are believed to be created as a result of activities happening near the edge of a super-massive black hole. Most galaxies are thought to possess a super-massive black hole but a very few of them are luminous enough while among those few, there are very little number of galaxies which form relativistic jets.
The team studied galaxies of five categories for visible signs of ongoing or recent merging- two of them were galaxies with jets, other two were galaxies with luminous cores but no jets and the rest was a set of regular inactive galaxies.
The host galaxies of such galactic jets emit out large amount of radio waves. The WFC3 camera of Hubble Space Telescope was used to detect these radio waves and it was found that nearly all the galaxies with heavy radio wave emission and depicting the presence of relativistic jets were associated with galaxies mergers.
Although this research is a great milestone yet further observation and research is required to understand the phenomenon better and to expand the study of the cosmos and its continuous complex processes.
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