X-ray spacecraft finds supermassive black hole stirring up the 'red potato' galaxy: 'There may be a cook in this cosmic kitchen'

Using the Chandra X-ray spacecraft, astronomers have seen a supermassive black hole jet churning and "cooking" gas surrounding a galaxy nicknamed the "red potato." And this potato is seen as it was when the universe was around 2 billion years old.

The galaxy in question is officially designated MQN01 J004131.9-493704 and is located about 11.7 billion light-years from Earth at the intersection of a vast cosmic web along which galaxies formed in the early universe. Originally discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the odd, blob-like appearance of the galaxy is why it has such a peculiar nickname.

The red potato sits in a cosmic "pot" of cold and dense gas. This is a little puzzling, as this should mean that stars are actively forming around it, but that isn't happening. New research offers an explanation: a supermassive black hole in the vicinity of the red potato is churning and heating the galaxy's pot of gas. This could be preventing the gas from cooling and collapsing to birth stellar bodies.