Astronomers can detect the biggest explosion in the Universe since the Big Bang

An international team of astronomers has detected the biggest explosion in the universe since the Big Bang. The eruption originated in a supermassive black hole about 390 million light years away in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster. According to Simona Giacintucci, one of the main researchers in the study, the crater left by the explosion has a size equivalent to 15 Milky Way.

In order to detect the phenomenon, astronomers used ESA's XMM-Newton telescopic systems and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, as well as data from the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India. Altogether, the eruption detected five times greater than that recorded by scientists in the MS0735.6 + 7421 galaxy cluster.

Explosion detected by scientists at the center of the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster.  credits: NASA

As the astronomers indicate, the explosion occurred over hundreds of millions of years, being related to the powerful jets emitted by the supermassive black hole. The research published in the scientific journal The Astrophysical Journal reveals that the eruption was caused by an active galactic nucleus, that is, the central region of a galaxy during phases of high radiation emission.

The explosion gave rise to a giant plasma crater surrounding the black hole. Researchers have been studying it since the Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first signs of an eruption in 2016, advances NASA. However, the data collected at the time was not sufficient to understand whether it was, in fact, one of the biggest explosions ever recorded.

Supermassive black holes have been puzzling researchers for a long time. Also in April 2019, an international collaboration of researchers gave rise to the first image of the phenomenon that is invisible to the human eye, symbolizing an important step in the historical direction of science.

In September of that year, NASA released a simulation of what would look like a real black hole. Created by Jeremy Schnmittman, astrophysicist at the American space agency, using software from the Gooddard Space Flight Center, the purpose of the demonstration was to illustrate the gravitational force present in the phenomenon.