A powerful punch by black hole jets shapes the fate of galaxies

Astronomers from institutions including the Raman Research Institute (RRI), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), and Arizona State University have discovered a mechanism explaining how supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies shape their host galaxies. Beyond the galactic disk lies the circumgalactic medium (CGM), a diffuse reservoir of gas that provides fuel for star formation. Researchers found that jets of seething hot plasma burped out by central black holes impact the gas in the CGM along their path rather than affecting it uniformly in all directions. This energy deposition kindles and ionizes the gas, preventing it from cooling and clumping together into stars, thereby suppressing star formation and keeping galaxies quiet and passive.