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Galaxy, Jets and Ionisation

9 May 2019
Astronomy

At https://phys.org/news/2019-05-jets-galaxy-cores-common.html … we are told astronomers have a rough understanding of how galaxies emit jets from their cores (presumably a reference to the jets emerging from what is assumed to be a black hole at the galactic core) but they also blow out winds of ionised gas – another word for plasma. There is currently no explanation for this. A study in Astronomy and Astrophysics (May 2019) starts by saying astronomers suspect every galaxy harbours a supermassive black hole. Now it is suggesed that magnetic fields also play a role in order to account for the ionised winds of plasma. We are actually told that magnetic fields drive jets of particles in opposite directions along the rotation axis of the black hole. They used observations by the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope to see how wind alters the shape of the X-ray spectrum along the line of sight – and modelled various data to arrive at their conclusion. In other words, they have detected plasma being ejected from a black hole. Is it a black hole or a galactic CME?

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