Astrobites at AAS 239 Virtual Events: Day 1
We report on Day 1 of the virtual events based around the cancelled winter AAS meeting.
Active Galactic Nuclei have a history of causing trouble
Many astronomers believe that AGN activity is responsible for suppressing star formation. However, it appears that maybe the past behaviour of AGN is what’s really to blame.
Into the (Double) Void
Today’s authors discovered not one, but two supermassive black holes! And they’re the closest pair to Earth that we’ve ever detected.
Mergers and AGN go hand-in-hand…or do they??
The authors of today’s paper dig deep into the debate of whether galaxy mergers are major players in triggering AGN at intermediate redshifts.
Paradise for Life by the AGN Light
Supermassive black holes have a really nasty reputation for rendering galaxies uninhabitable, but this perception may be misguided. It’s possible that the radiation these vast beasts release while feasting could bring forth a bounty for life as we know it. Could organisms subsist on the light of an AGN sun?
Three Bodies and You’re Out: Ejecting the First Known Hypervelocity Globular Cluster
In today’s paper, astronomers try to figure out why one of M87’s globular clusters is leaving – and leaving fast.