Galactic explosions and collisions are a very common phenomenon in space the big bang is one
of the most significant and well-known explosions to ever take place in the universe but astronomers
now claim to have discovered what they are calling the largest explosion of all time
and it's happening 390 million light years away from us
astronomers have just discovered the largest cosmic explosion since the big
bang the record-breaking gigantic eruption came from a black hole in a distant galaxy
cluster millions of light years away welcome to Factnomenal and in today's video we will be
taking a close look at the biggest baddest explosion in the history of the universe
it all began back in 2016 when a team of scientists discovered a huge dent in the
ophiuchus cluster through x-ray data the super cluster that sits 390 million light years away
from planet earth began to exhibit a curious concave gas density continuity at the outer edge
of its cool core it was first discovered in the chandra x-ray image by norbert werner and a team
of collaborators while taking detailed pictures of the core of the ophiuchus cluster for the simple
purpose of studying it but little did they know that what they were about to find in the images
could completely change the way we view the universe during the course of their observations
they stumbled upon a giant cavity a big dark void spanning 750 000 light years wide to put
it into perspective the hole is so big that it could actually very easily hold up to 14
milky way galaxies within itself it completely took scientists and astronomers
by surprise and of course from there on the speculation began what could it possibly be
and why is it so massive galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the universe containing
thousands of individual galaxies of all shapes and sizes dark matter and hot gas which is all
held together by gravity besides what you would usually find in a galaxy cluster such as this one
each cluster is also filled with a really hot thin plasma it is so excruciatingly hot that it is
capable of emitting intense x-ray radiation many theories were thrown around with some suggesting
the possibility of a giant cavity in the cluster's plasma but this was later dismissed as highly
unlikely they began to focus their attention on this massive oddity one thing we know for sure
in space where there is a giant cavity or void in a volume of gas there surely was an explosion and
judging by the sheer monstrosity of the hole that has been left over that had to have been
one of the biggest explosions ever in the history of the universe at least that we know of so far
prior to the discovery of the new giant explosion the largest known explosion was
that of the two vast cavities in the hot x-ray emitting gas of the galaxy cluster ms-0735
each of the cavities are 600 000 light years in diameter and contain very little hot gas
the two voids appear on either side of the large galaxy at the center of
the cluster which indicates that the gigantic eruption was seemingly caused by the galaxy's
supermassive black hole right at the core the magnitude of the explosion was so great and
studies suggest that as large amounts of gas rolled rapidly towards the black hole in the
center the resulting electromagnetic fields ejected gas in the form of powerful jets
full of high energy particles as the jets blasted through the galaxy it likely displaced the hot
gas completely to the side thus creating the two great cavities scientists have even estimated that
the mass of the displaced gas is easily more than the mass of all the known stars in our milky way
and yet with the new exciting discovery of the Ophiuchus cluster cavity astronomers say that the
amount of energy that would have been required to create a void as big as this would at least
be five times greater than the amount of energy used to create the holes in the ms-0735 galaxy
to really understand what went down here let's back it up with a bit of science
we know of super giant stars that reach the end of their days where they burn bright and
hot until they burst and go supernovae the outcome of that could only be two things that we know of
a neutron star or supernova remnant the brightest thing in the universe
or it could become a black hole black holes are undoubtedly the most mysterious of all objects
in space and are known for being power hungry sucking up everything in their surroundings
but another thing that these black holes are capable of is massive cosmic explosions and
that's exactly what researchers believe happened in the ophiuchus cluster oh yes
as gas and dust swirl down towards a black hole it compresses and begins to heat up
the gas is forced to occupy very little room as the space outside of the black hole is plenty
but on the inside not so much this superheated gas generates incredibly strong electric and magnetic
fields forcing all the materials surrounding the black hole to follow in their direction
some material fall straight into the black hole while some just gets whipped around
and seems to follow its own complex trajectory the material is then ejected from the poles of
the black hole in opposite directions like two giant jets of light and if they are met
with resistance within a galaxy cluster it completely blows the whole thing wide open
black hole explosions are so powerful perhaps that was what was able to punch a massive hole
straight through the ophiuchus cluster plasma if there were ever a competition
for the best cosmic explosion in the galaxy this one would surely be winning the gold
once it became clear that there was more study needed into the huge void discovered
in the ophiuchus galaxy cluster scientists and astronomers began putting together information
from various sources what was a small study then grew into a collaborative effort from all over
the world researchers were able to gather radio data from the galaxy and began to compare it to
the x-ray images that were first captured after rigorous study it was concluded that the cavity
was in fact most certainly caused by a giant explosion in the galaxy and the culprit was
most definitely a supermassive black hole at its center the explosion was so unbelievably huge that
initially while studying the x-ray image many people were initially skeptical that it could
have been caused by an energetic outburst since it was unlike anything they had ever seen before
perhaps there may have been gargantuan explosions even larger than this one in the past but this
is the first of its kind that scientists actually have raw data and images of making it all the more
special it was only when they combined the radio data that all of the speculation was put to rest
the collaborative efforts of x-ray data gathered from NASAs Chandra x-ray observatory and the
ESA's xmm-newton along with radio data from the murchison wide field array in australia and giant
meter wave radio telescope in india are all being credited for the discovery of the mega cosmic
explosion what couldn't previously be established in the initial 2016 study when it was first
spotted was finally understood four years later all the combined data showed the curved edge that
was observed was indeed a part of a cavity wall because it borders an area rich in radio emission
the emission is likely to have resulted from when the black hole's violent outburst
accelerated electrons to almost the speed of light according to researchers study lead author simona
giancantucci from the naval research laboratory in Washington dc said that the blast was somewhat
similar to the 1980 eruption of the mount saint helens which completely ripped off
the top of the mountain when explaining just how colossal the explosion is co-author of
the study Elaine johnston-holly told bbc that the explosion could be compared to setting off
20 billion megatons of tnt explosions every thousandth of a second for about 240 million years
the new study and findings were published in the astrophysical journal
there is yet a lot of study to be done on the cluster to find out what when and how exactly all
the events leading up to the explosion took place scientists have said that from the data they have
analyzed there doesn't seem to be any evidence of ongoing activity at least for now the chandra
data however has revealed that there is just one area of radio emission which is actually quite odd
ideally black hole explosions go off in two different directions like two massive bright
jets it could be that perhaps the jet feeding gas on the other side was less abundant and the
emissions dissipated quicker than the other region researchers are keen to study this
even further to find out exactly why that is as of now what the implications of this explosion
for planet earth could be is still unclear it would certainly be a sight to behold if we were
able to witness a cosmic explosion like this one however as exciting as this discovery has been
we can all be grateful for the fact that we are millions of light years away
what do you think of the Ophiuchus cluster explosion do you think it was due to a black hole
let us know in the comments don't forget to smash that like button subscribe to the channel and hit
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