A regulatory mechanism similar to the functioning of the heart and lungs in the human body has prevented galaxies in the universe from becoming “zombies”.
A recent study published in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society sought to explain why galaxies in the universe can only grow to a certain size and cannot become as gigantic as astronomical theories suggest.
They found the explanation within the “death stars” of galaxies, referring to “supermassive black holes.”
A supermassive black hole ejecting powerful jets throughout the universe, which can spread across galaxies – (Photo: ESO).
Supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies are the largest and most terrifying black holes in the universe, significantly larger than intermediate-mass black holes. Stellar black holes are merely grains of sand in comparison.
Supermassive black holes turn a vast region of space around them into a dead zone, filled with dangerous radiation and the risk of being consumed.
However, the research team from the University of Kent (UK) has now discovered that black holes are not only harbingers of death but also guardians.
It is precisely these “death stars” that prevent the universe from becoming a world full of “zombies.”
In the new study, lead author Carl Richards created novel simulations, previously untested, to examine the role of supersonic jets in suppressing galaxy growth.
These simulations demonstrate that the jets from supermassive black holes can function like the diaphragm in the human body, a muscle that moves within the chest cavity to inflate and deflate both lungs.
In galaxies, these jets help transmit the tremendous jet energy from the black hole widely into the surrounding environment, slowing down the accumulation and development of gas in the galaxy.
This process regulates galaxy activity much like the heart and lungs regulate the body, helping it not to grow too quickly, thereby aging more slowly.
As a result, many worlds within these galaxies have the chance to be born and develop before the galaxy runs out of its lifecycle and transforms into a “zombie”, meaning a galaxy that no longer has star formation processes.
On a larger scale, if the “death stars” did not exist among galaxies, the universe would age much faster than it currently does, and all that we see today would be enormous “zombie” galaxies filled with dead and dying stars.
And sometimes we might not even be able to see, because our Milky Way galaxy, which contains Earth, is already quite old.
If it had died too quickly billions of years ago, Earth and our Solar System might never have come into existence, or at least Earth would not have existed by the time humanity arrived.
