恒星在黑洞的深处诞生

Located about 5.8 billion light years from Earth in the Phoenix Constellation, astronomers have confirmed the first example of a galaxy cluster where large numbers of stars are being born at its core.

Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the cosmos that are held together by gravity, consisting of hundreds or thousands of galaxies embedded in hot gas, as well as invisible dark matter. The largest supermassive black holes known are in galaxies at the centers of these clusters.

For decades, astronomers have looked for galaxy clusters containing rich nurseries of stars in their central galaxies. Instead, they found powerful, giant black holes pumping out energy through jets of high-energy particles and keeping the gas too warm to form many stars.

Now, scientists have compelling evidence for a galaxy cluster where stars are forming at a furious rate, apparently linked to a less effective black hole in its center. In this unique cluster, the jets from the central black hole instead appear to be aiding in the formation of stars. Researchers used new data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, and the NSF’s Karl Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to build on previous observations of this cluster.

Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/G.Schellenberger et al.; Optical:SDSS

位于离地球58亿光年的凤凰星座，天文学家已经确认了第一个在其核心诞生大量恒星的星系团的例子。

星系团是宇宙中由万有引力维系在一起的最大的结构，它由数百或数千个嵌在热气体中的星系以及看不见的暗物质组成。已知最大的超大质量黑洞位于这些星系团中心的星系中。

几十年来，天文学家们一直在寻找中心星系中含有丰富恒星的星系团。相反，他们发现了强大的巨大黑洞，它们通过高能量粒子喷射出能量，使气体温度过高而不能形成许多恒星。

现在，科学家们有了令人信服的证据，证明一个星系团中恒星正在以惊人的速度形成，这显然与它中心的一个效率较低的黑洞有关。在这个独特的星系团中，来自中心黑洞的喷流似乎在帮助恒星的形成。研究人员使用了来自美国宇航局钱德拉X射线天文台和哈勃太空望远镜的新数据，以及国家科学基金会的卡尔·扬斯基超大型阵列(VLA)射电台的数据来建立之前对这个星团的观测。

图片来源: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/G.Schellenberger et al.; Optical:SDSS