Starving Black Hole Darkens The Bright Galaxy

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other observatories have gathered data indicating that a starving black hole dims the bright galaxy. The black hole is not fed an adequate amount of fuel to make the galaxy brighter.

NASA reports that numerous galaxies have the exceptionally bright nucleus that is empowered by material falling toward a supermassive black hole. These are known as AGN or the active galactic nuclei, which are some of the brightest objects in the space.

Active galactic nucleus (AGN) is at the center of the galaxy with higher than normal luminosity over at least some portion and could possibly be all. The radiation coming from the AGN is theorized to be the accretion of matter by a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. It is considered the most luminous sources of electromagnetic radiation in the universe, which can be used in discovering distant objects and their evolution.

AGN has been observed to change once between the two types of AGN for years. On the other hand, the AGN linked with the galaxy Markarian 1018 changes type twice from a faint to a bright AGN in the 1980s. Then, it changed back to faint AGN in the last five years. In this second change, the Markarian 1018 AGN became eight times fainter in X-rays between 2010 and 2016.

The Very Large telescopes and other ground-based telescopes collected data wherein they showed that the increase in the brightness of the AGN was caused by the black hole upsetting and eating a star. There is also a possibility that changes in obscuration by intervening gas cause changes in the brilliance of the AGN.

On the other hand, with the Chandra and Hubble data, the variation of AGN is uncovered. In the observations made in 2010 and 2016, it showed that obscuration by intervening gas was not responsible for the decline in the illumination. But rather, the glow and faint indicated that AGN had faded because the black hole was being starved of infalling material. The starvation then of the black hole clarifies the fading of the AGN in X-rays. The starvation is caused by disruption of the inflow of fuel.