{"id":23241,"date":"2021-09-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=23241"},"modified":"2021-10-22T11:41:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T11:41:36","slug":"galaxy-arms-feed-hungry-black-holes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/2021\/09\/16\/galaxy-arms-feed-hungry-black-holes\/","title":{"rendered":"Galaxy arms feed hungry black holes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The structures slow down the gas until it falls to a galactic centre<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Scientists have been looking at how quasars, like CQ4479 here, are being fuelled by their spiral galaxies\u2019 shape<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Gas-guzzling supermassive black holes, known as quasars, are fed by their host galaxy\u2019s spiral arms scooping up gas for them to devour, according to a new set of computer simulations which looked at the gas flow throughout the whole galaxy, rather than just the region around the black hole.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe light we observe from distant quasars is powered by gas falling into supermassive black holes and getting heated up in the process,\u201d says Claude-Andr\u00e9 Faucher-Gigu\u00e8re from Northwestern University.<\/p>\n\n

Quasars can swallow up to 10 solar masses of material a year, but astronomers have struggled to account for what funnels the gas towards the central black hole.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u201cOur simulations show that galaxy structures, such as spiral arms, use gravitational forces to \u2018put the brakes on\u2019 gas that would otherwise orbit the galaxy centres forever,\u201d says Faucher-Gigu\u00e8re. www.northwestern.edu<\/a><\/p>\n\n

ILLUSTRATION: NASA\/DANIEL RUTTER<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The structures slow down gas until it falls to a galactic centre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"13","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"13","purple_seq_number":"1","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"1","purple_source_article":"article_13-1.xml","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"article_13-1.xml","purple_source_issue":"October-2021","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"October-2021","purple_external_id":"October-2021-13-1","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"October-2021-13-1","purple_issue_code":"|0000086545||","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000086545||","purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.197","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.197","purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.197","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.197","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"075fab74-0a21-4201-866a-899d6c41c40c","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[14],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/09\/356fa566-f450-4a0c-9db0-cfccb3396637.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/09\/356fa566-f450-4a0c-9db0-cfccb3396637.jpg",1583,1151,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/09\/356fa566-f450-4a0c-9db0-cfccb3396637-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/09\/356fa566-f450-4a0c-9db0-cfccb3396637-300x218.jpg",300,218,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/09\/356fa566-f450-4a0c-9db0-cfccb3396637-768x558.jpg",768,558,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/09\/356fa566-f450-4a0c-9db0-cfccb3396637-1024x745.jpg",800,582,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/09\/356fa566-f450-4a0c-9db0-cfccb3396637-1536x1117.jpg",1536,1117,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/09\/356fa566-f450-4a0c-9db0-cfccb3396637.jpg",1583,1151,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The structures slow down gas until it falls to a galactic centre","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23241"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24727,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23241\/revisions\/24727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}