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New Study Reveals Short Lifespans of Compact Symmetric Objects

Powered by tidal disruption events, these objects challenge previous notions of galactic evolution.

Image
This image, taken by the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), shows two supermassive black holes, which appear as the blobs with red strips. The black holes are in the center of an elliptical galaxy. Colors represent different spectral slopes in radio emission, with red showing the most dense regions surrounding the black holes. The black hole on the right has likely recently devoured a massive star, which caused it to shoot out two ultrafast jets. The ends of those jets appear as green blobs above and below the black hole. This object, called J0405+3803, is referred to as a Compact Symmetric Object (CSO), because its jets are relatively close-in (or compact), compared to other black holes with much larger jets. Credit: H.L. Maness/Grinnell College

Overview

  • Compact Symmetric Objects (CSOs) are not young galaxies but have relatively short lifespans, living and dying out in thousands of years.
  • CSOs are powered by tidal disruption events (TDEs), where a massive star is devoured by a supermassive black hole, leading to the emission of ultrafast jets.
  • These jets are very energetic but last for only about 5,000 years before shutting off.
  • CSOs provide a new avenue for studying the interactions between massive stars and supermassive black holes on shorter timescales.
  • Only one out of every 100 CSO jets is predicted to become long-lived, similar to the jets found in galaxies like Cygnus A.