Scientists have found an unusual neon glow near the center of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy for the first time.
This gas needs an enormous amount of energy to shine — more than normal stars can supply. The discovery, based on data from NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope, likely means the barred spiral galaxy, sometimes called Messier 83 or M83, has been harboring an active, supermassive black hole in secret.
The new research, published in The Astrophysical Journal, upends prior thinking about the galaxy. Previously, it was assumed that if there were a hole in its heart, it would be dormant and certainly not shooting out high-energy radiation.
“Before Webb, we simply did not have the tools to detect such faint and highly ionized gas signatures in M83’s nucleus,” said Svea Hernandez, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, in a statement. “We are finally able to explore these hidden depths of the galaxy and uncover what was once invisible.”
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