AGN Feedback in Markarian 573

This animation illustrates the active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback process occurring in the galaxy Markarian 573. The AGN itself, a supermassive black hole and its accretion disk surrounded by a dense wide, thick ring of dust and gas, is shown first. The ring, also called a torus, restricts escaping radiation to a pair of conical regions extending above and below its plane. The animation then zooms out to reveal the interaction between radiation escaping from the AGN's conical emitting regions and the gas in the galaxy's disk. The disk gas initially rotates in the galaxy's plane and becomes ionized as it passes through the AGN radiation field. Gas located less than about 2,500 light-years from the AGN accelerates away and forms fast-moving outflows. Gas located at larger distances also becomes ionized, but it is not driven away from the nucleus and remains rotating in the galaxy's disk. These interactions likely explain the spatially resolved structure and motions astronomers observe in other nearby AGN.