"Black Hole Jet Flips Direction: Is Earth in the Crosshairs?"

 "Black Hole Jet Flips Direction: Is Earth in the Crosshairs?"

On 11th February, 2022, a signal 802022 is received in Palomar Observatory, CMC, California.

This signal was so bright that it was as if a torchlight was flashing in space. Then what

happened? There was a commotion in the Astronomers.

And everyone put all their instruments behind it. The photos of this signal were taken from the

world's best telescope. And the wavelengths of this signal were recorded from the spectrum of

multiple lights.

And finally, we came to know that this was not an ordinary signal. In fact, it was a jet of a

supermassive black hole that was directly pointing towards us. And it has so much energy that

it can destroy even two Earths.

And no, I am not saying this as a hypothetical thing. In fact, this has already happened once. A

similar SMBH, that is, a supermassive black hole, had blown away the planets of its companion

galaxy orbiting around it with its jet.

Actually, in 2006, when NASA astronomers were exploring space, they saw that something

powerful was coming out of the system of 3C321, which is a system of two galaxies. After

studying it closely, it was found that a powerful jet was coming out of the big galaxy of this

galaxy system and was destroying all the small galaxies orbiting it. The gamma radiations

coming out of that jet were so powerful that they were destroying the atmosphere of the

planets present in that part of the galaxy.

And at the same time, they were slowing down the star formation and all the other cosmic

events. What's more, in the near future, according to scientists, these gamma ray bursts still

have the ability to cause more damage. And that's why scientists refer to this big galaxy as the

Death Star Galaxy.

But the energy released by the black hole jet that astronomers recently found, is 100 times

more than the gamma ray bursts in the Death Star Galaxy. Now that's huge! So much so that

the biggest planet in the solar system, Jupiter, can be blown away in a blink of an eye. So now

think, if this super-powerful jet filled with so much energy collides with our earth, what will

happen? Well, this can be guessed.

First of all, the tremendous energy of this jet will affect both the orbital path and speed of the

earth, which will cause the earth to face two catastrophes immediately. First, if the earth gets

close to the sun, then everything will turn into a desert due to the high heat. Or suppose the

earth moves away from the sun, then the atmosphere will become unbelievably cold, and in

that case, the earth might as well freeze to death.

Now, the worst case, as soon as this energy enters the earth's atmosphere, the earth's

atmosphere will be destroyed because of these harmful radiations. After that, the harmful

radiations coming from the sun will burn everything together, and our flourishing earth will

once again turn into barren land like Mars. However, scientists still claim that we are not in any

danger from this jet.

Why? Well, according to the scientists, distance can come to our rescue here. So this black hole

jet that is about to burst is 657 billion light years away from the earth. That means, even though

that jet is very energetic and dangerous, and is pointing towards us, it will become very weak as

it reaches the earth.

And according to some speculations, it will be so weak that even the ice cubes in our cold drinks

will not melt. But here, on a serious note, how did the scientists say this with so much

guarantee? Well, through redshift. So, in reality, this signal was revealed to the researchers due

to its 1.193 redshift.

And as we have talked about this many times before, redshifts are calculated from the

displacement towards the red wavelength in the spectrum. The greater the redshift value, the

further the source of that light's signal, i.e. the source, was captured by the Zwicky Transient

Facility first, Now, ZDF is basically a hypersensitive camera that observes the changes in visible

and infrared wavelengths and expresses them in terms of redshift. In this case too, ZDF

accurately recorded the spectral lines.

Then, in those recorded lines, the scientists found that the absorption lines of the spectrum are

producing a lot of red bands. And on this basis, they calculated the distance from the earth to

this jet source, which came out to be 657 million light years. In this distance, 6,500 Milky Ways

will accumulate.

And when the brightness of that jet was studied together, it was found that it is 30,000 degrees

Celsius hot. Now, for those who don't know, let me tell you, this temperature is almost 6 times

higher than the sun. Because of which, scientists have given this event a title disruption event,

TDE.

And this TDE is the largest TDE ever found. It is big because if the rays emitted from it reach the

earth by mistake, then mass extinction is certain. Whenever a star goes near a supermassive

black hole, what happens? Very obvious answer, spaghettification.

And when a black hole emits more than a hajj, then those things are thrown out as high-energy

jets. And this phenomenon is called a tidal disruption event. Now, initially, researchers were

considering this jet as a normal TDE.

But then they observed this light signal on the X-ray wavelengths from Neutron Star Interior

Composition Explorer, NICER. And then they came to know that the intensity of this normal TDE

at the beginning is as much as 1000 trillion solar masses. And according to these articles

published in the popular journal Nature, such a large TDE can only be caused by a hyperactive

supermassive black hole.

A black hole that easily gulps half the size of the sun every year. Now, the specialty of these

TDEs is that after studying them, astronomers get help in studying their behaviours. Like here,

scientists found out from this massive TDE that the jet produced by the black hole has flipped

by 90 degrees.

And along with this, scientists believe that this SMBH has gained so much mass by just

swallowing its surroundings as a result of which it has reoriented due to its own gravity. For

example, take a seesaw. If you put a heavy weight on one side and the other side is empty, then

it will tilt by itself.

The same thing has happened with this black hole due to which the jet coming out of it has now

pointed towards the earth. Another assumption scientists have made is that the jet can flip due

to the collisions of two SMBHs. Just like our earth.

Because if you remember, according to the Giant Impact Hypothesis, when 4.5 billion years ago

a planet as big as Mars hit the earth, then the axis of our earth had tilted a little. And that axial

tilt is still felt by the earth. So maybe the reason behind the black hole jet flipping could also be

the collision.

Now, what is the exact reason behind this? Scientists are still researching it. But so far, keeping

in mind all the information that the scientists have received, on 30th November 2022, the Royal

Astronomical Society had to change the definition of this galaxy. Now this in itself is a very big

thing because this has never happened before.

As we know, supermassive black holes are the center point of all galaxies. These supermassive

black holes are somehow driving our galaxies. So this particular SMBH is actually the center

point of this galaxy.

You will find this galaxy here near the Bootes constellation. And all the galaxies near this

constellation fall under the category of radio galaxies. Now radio galaxies, as the name

suggests, emit high-powered radio energies from their active galactic nucleus.

But how much? Well, approximately 10 to the power of 27 watts radio power. And coming back,

But today's hot topic, The AGMs from which such jets are produced, we call them Blazars. And

obviously, those galaxies are called Blazar galaxies.

In the entire observable universe, only 2700 galaxies fall under the category of Blazars. And

some of them are the popular ones, this, this, and this. And among these, the latest addition is

the recently discovered galaxy, this.

According to new evidence, the lobes of the first observed jets coming out of the core of this

galaxy are very old. In other words, they radiate less energy. And according to scientist Dr.

Lorena Hernandez Garcia, the jets that the active galactic nucleus does not feed are a product

of some past activity.

And new and active jets are found near the AGM. In short, old jets will dim over time and new

jets will look the brightest. Another assumption is that the reason for this particular jet being so

bright is relativistic beaming.

Imagine that you and I are standing on two sides of a road and an ambulance is passing by

with a siren. So everyone will hear the sound at a different intensity, right? Connect this exact

logic to the energy of space instead of sound. And this is called relativistic beaming.

This effect connected to Einstein's theory of relativity classifies this particular jet as a relativistic

type of jet. As per scientists, this black hole and its flipped relativistic jet are not a threat to us.

But still, considering this incident to be extraordinary, researchers at the University of

Birmingham and MIT have decided to collaborate so that we can study this unique event in

more detail and find out that if such an incident happens in the future or if such a threat arises

in front of us, how can we tackle it? Because according to researchers, such behavior can be

shown by that monster black hole which has recently been located near Earth