UM 287

UM 287 known as PHL 868 and LBQS 0049+0045, is a quasar located in the Cetus constellation. Its redshift is 2.267134 estimating the object to be located 10.9 billion light-years away from Earth.

Observation history

UM 287 was first discovered between 1974 and 1976, where it was observed as a part of the Curtis Schmidt-thin prism survey for extragalactic emission-line objects and possible quasars. The name UM comes from the University of Michigan.

Characteristics

UM 287 is classified as a radio-quiet quasar. It has a bolometric brightness of around 10 ^47.3 erg /s, making it one of the brightest quasars ever observed. Furthermore, UM 287 has a Lyman-alpha blob structure surrounding the object. Some of these Lyman-alpha blobs have line luminosities up to ~ 10⁴⁴ erg s⁻¹ with their spatial extents exceeding 100 proper kpc. But in this case, the Lyman-alpha blob structure in UM 287 is 1.5 million light-years across making it too big to be contained within the quasar's host galaxy, which is found to be a massive early-type galaxy.
Using the 10-meter Keck I telescope in Hawaii, a team of researchers found there is cold hydrogen emitting Lyman-alpha radiation underneath the spotlight of the quasar's intense ultraviolet beam. The nebula is dubbed the Slug Nebula, named after the UCSC’s banana slug mascot. It is believed to play a major role in powering up the quasar which the Lyα emission produces from a large population of compact, dense, cool gas clumps. From a follow-up field observation, a smooth kinematic profile is suggested. This presents a giant, rotating proto-galactic disk for the brightest portion of the filament showing a cold accretion flow around the black hole in UM 287.
In addition to the Lyman-alpha blob structure, a new dusty star-forming galaxy was found. The galaxy has a 2 mm continuum with its single emission line consistent with the CO, sitting at a projected distance of 100 kpc southeast from UM 287. The systemic velocity difference is -360 ± 30 km s-1 with respect to UM 287, suggesting the galaxy is a possible contributor to the powering of the Slug Nebula.