Artist’s impression of filaments of gas flowing toward the accretion disk of 3C 84.
Three astronomers from the Netherlands have proven that gas that was previously heated near a supermassive black hole flowed to the outskirts of the galaxy and cooled down, moving back towards the black hole. While there had been indirect evidence for this theory, this is the first time that the cooled gas moving toward the black hole has actually been observed. The astronomers used data collected by the ALMA observatory from the iconic galaxy 3C 84 (also referred to NGC 1275 or Perseus A). That galaxy is located 235 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Perseus.

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