Tour: Red Potato Galaxy
(Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart)
[Runtime: 02:30]

With closed-captions (at YouTube)

A black hole may be stirring a “pot” of gas containing a neighboring galaxy in the early universe, according to a new study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The galaxy slowly being “cooked” has been nicknamed the “red potato” by astronomers because of how it looks in images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

The red potato galaxy is located about 11.7 billion light-years from Earth at an intersection where gigantic web-like structures of galaxies and gas meet. Astronomers targeted this area with Webb because they knew it contains one of the heaviest concentrations of galaxies and growing supermassive black holes in the early universe.

Since data from the Very Large Telescope in Chile shows the red potato galaxy is surrounded by an enormous cloud, or “pot”, of relatively cold gas, astronomers expected that it would have large numbers of young stars that formed after some of the gas was pulled into the galaxy. Scientists have found nearby galaxies surrounded by cold gas ablaze with star formation, but that was not the case for the red potato.

Since stars were not forming like they thought they would, a group of researchers went searching for the reason why. Using Chandra, they discovered that a jet of particles from a black hole in a neighboring galaxy is striking the gas cloud around the red potato galaxy. The jet may be causing the gas to be turbulent, preventing most of the gas from falling onto the red potato galaxy to form large numbers of new stars.

If the black hole’s jet is stirring up the gas around the red potato it could greatly slow down how quickly the galaxy can acquire new, fresh material to form stars. With the energy from the stirring, the galaxy will starve and not be able to produce new stars at the rate expected for similar galaxies at the same cosmic epoch.

Astronomers want to learn how galaxies and black holes interact with each other — especially at this critical epoch in the universe’s history – and how that impacts when and how stars form.

Quick Look: Red Potato Galaxy
(Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart)
[Runtime: 00:46]

With narration (video above with voiceover)

The “red potato” galaxy is being stirred by an unusual utensil from a neighbor galaxy.

A jet from a black hole in a nearby galaxy is pumping the red potato with energy.

Made with NASA’s Chandra, this discovery explains why so few stars are forming.

This result is a glimpse at the complex action happening in the early universe.