About this episode
This episode discusses the dangers posed by a death ray from a black hole affecting a companion galaxy.
Any residents of a galaxy in the constellation Serpens have a big problem: They’re being blasted by a death ray from a black hole. The galaxy is a companion to a bigger galaxy, known as 3C321. They’re more than a billion light-years away. A supermassive black hole inhabits the heart of the larger galaxy. It’s surrounded by a giant disk of gas that’s heated to millions of degrees. Powerful magnetic fields funnel charged particles from the disk into jets. They squirt away from the poles of the black hole at almost the speed of light. One of those jets is firing toward the companion galaxy, which is just 20,000 light-years away. Observations by telescopes on the ground and in space show that the jet is hitting the edge of the companion, creating a hotspot. The encounter deflects the beam off its original course, but the beam continues for hundreds of thousands of light-years. The particles and radiation in the beam could destroy the ozone layer of any planet the beam hits. That would leave the planet exposed to radiation from the beam itself, and from other cosmic sources. So anything living on the planet would be in danger. And the situation is getting even…
People in this episode
Host: Billy Henry
Topics covered
- black holes
- galaxies
- cosmic radiation
- astronomy
- supermassive black holes
- space phenomena
Keywords
- death ray
- black hole
- galaxy
- 3C321
- Serpens
- ozone layer
- cosmic radiation
- jet
- supermassive black hole
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Serpens, 3C321
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