Astronomers have spotted a void, a cavity, a big hole in the intergalactic stuff in a cluster of galaxies far away. And this thing is big. Very big — fifteen Milky Way Galaxies across. The void was created by a stupendously energetic jet erupting from a Super Massive Black Hole in the centre of one of the galaxies, and when they did the maths, the researchers realised they were looking at the aftermath of the biggest explosion since ... well, since the Big Bang itself!
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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
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Things we talked about in this episode:
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The original paper by Giacintucci et al
Press releases: from Chandra X-Ray Observatory and from ICRAR
Read more: NewScientist article
Bigger than a supernova: Hypernovas!
The SKA Telescope