Galaxy Washington | SilverScorpio.Com

Supermassive black hole gets kicked out of galaxy

May 12, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 12 (ANI): An international team of astronomers has discovered what appears to be a supermassive black hole leaving its home galaxy at high speed.

For her final-year project, undergraduate student Marianne Heida of the University of Utrecht, worked at the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, using the Chandra Source Catalog (made using the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory) to compare hundreds of thousands of sources of X-rays with the positions of millions of galaxies.

Normally each galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its center. The material that falls into black holes heats up dramatically on its final journey and often means that black holes are strong X-ray sources.

X-rays are also able to penetrate the dust and gas that obscures the center of a galaxy, giving astronomers a clear view of the region around the black hole, with the bright source appearing as a starlike point.

Looking at one galaxy in the catalog, Marianne noticed that the point of light was offset from the center and yet was so bright that it could well be associated with a supermassive black hole.

The black hole appears to be in the process of being expelled from its galaxy at high speed. Given that these objects can have masses equivalent to 1 billion Suns, it takes a special set of conditions to cause this to happen.

Marianne”s newly-discovered object is probably the result of the merger of two smaller black holes. Supercomputer models suggest that the larger black hole that results is shot away at high speed, depending on the direction and speed in which the two black holes rotate before their collision.

In any case, it provides a fascinating insight into the way in which supermassive black holes develop in them center of galaxies.

Marianne”s research — which was carried out under the supervision of SRON researcher Peter Jonker — suggests this discovery may be only the tip of the iceberg, with others subject to future confirmation using the Chandra Observatory.

“We have found many more objects in this strange class of X-ray sources. With Chandra we should be able to make the accurate measurements we need to pinpoint them more precisely and identify their nature,” she said.

Finding more recoiling black holes will provide a better understanding of the characteristics of black holes before they merge.

In future, it might even be possible to observe this process with the planned LISA satellite, an instrument capable of measuring the gravity waves that the two merging black holes emit.

Ultimately this information will let scientists know if supermassive black holes in the cores of galaxies really are the result of many lighter black holes merging together.

This discovery appears in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: black hole, Bright Source, chandra x ray, Final Journey, Final Year Project, Galaxy Washington, Heida, home galaxy, Peter Jonker, ray observatory, ray sources, source catalog, space research, Sron Netherlands Institute, Supercomputer Models, supermassive black holes, Tip Of The Iceberg, undergraduate student, university of utrecht, x rays

Astronomers get sharpest view ever of star factories in distant galaxy

March 22, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, March 22 (ANI): Reports indicate that astronomers have combined a natural gravitational lens and a sophisticated telescope array to get the sharpest view ever of “star factories” in a galaxy over 10 billion light-years from Earth.

They found that the distant galaxy, known as SMM J2135-0102, is making new stars 250 times faster than our Galaxy, the Milky Way.

They also pinpointed four discrete star-forming regions within the galaxy, each over 100 times brighter than locations (like the Orion Nebula) where stars form in our Galaxy.

This is the first time that astronomers have been able to study properties of individual star-forming regions within a galaxy so far from Earth.

“To a layperson, our images appear fuzzy, but to us, they show the exquisite detail of a Faberge egg,” said Steven Longmore of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

Due to the time it takes light to travel to us, we see the galaxy as it existed just 3 billion years after the Big Bang.

It was Milky Way-sized at the time.

If we could see it today, 10 billion years later, it would have grown into a giant elliptical galaxy much more massive than our own.

“This galaxy is like a teenager going through a growth spurt,” said Mark Swinbank of Durham University.

“If you could see it today as an ‘adult’, you’d find the galactic equivalent of Yao Ming the basketball player,” he added.

The Submillimeter Array (SMA) data revealed four extremely bright star-forming regions. The large luminosities, 100 times greater than typical for nearby galaxies, imply a very high rate of star formation.

“We don’t fully understand why the stars are forming so rapidly, but our result suggests that stars formed much more efficiently in the early universe than they do today,” said Swinbank. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: basketball player, distant galaxy, durham university, early universe, exquisite detail, faberge egg, Galaxy Washington, Giant Elliptical Galaxy, Gravitational Lens, Growth Spurt, harvard smithsonian center, harvard smithsonian center for astrophysics, Longmore, nearby galaxies, new stars, orion nebula, star-formation, submillimeter array, telescope array, Yao Ming

NASA’s Swift satellite makes best-ever ultraviolet portrait of Andromeda galaxy

September 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 17 (ANI): NASA’s Swift satellite has acquired the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet.

The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, is the largest and closest spiral galaxy to our own.

“Swift reveals about 20,000 ultraviolet sources in M31, especially hot, young stars and dense star clusters,” said Stefan Immler, a research scientist on the Swift team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“Of particular importance is that we have covered the galaxy in three ultraviolet filters. That will let us study M31′s star-formation processes in much greater detail than previously possible,” he added.

M31, also known as the Andromeda Galaxy, is more than 220,000 light-years across and lies 2.5 million light-years away.

On a clear, dark night, the galaxy is faintly visible as a misty patch to the naked eye.

Between May 25 and July 26, 2008, Swift’s Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) acquired 330 images of M31 at wavelengths of 192.8, 224.6, and 260 nanometers.

The images represent a total exposure time of 24 hours.

The task of assembling the resulting 85 gigabytes of images fell to Erin Grand, an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland at College Park who worked with Immler as an intern this summer.

“After ten weeks of processing that immense amount of data, I’m extremely proud of this new view of M31,” she said.

Several features are immediately apparent in the new mosaic.

The first is the striking difference between the galaxy’s central bulge and its spiral arms.

“The bulge is smoother and redder because it’s full of older and cooler stars,” Immler explained. “Very few new stars form here because most of the materials needed to make them have been depleted,” he added.

Dense clusters of hot, young, blue stars sparkle beyond the central bulge.

M31′s disk and spiral arms contain most of the gas and dust needed to produce new generations of stars.

Star clusters are especially plentiful in an enormous ring about 150,000 light-years across.

“Swift is surveying nearby galaxies like M31 so astronomers can better understand star- formation conditions and relate them to conditions in the distant galaxies where we see gamma-ray bursts occurring,” said Neil Gehrels, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA Goddard. (ANI)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: amount, andromeda, Andromeda Galaxy, ANI, bulge, center, Central Bulge, college, constellation, Constellation Andromeda, dense, Dense Clusters, dense star, detail, difference, disk, dust, Erin Grand, exposure, eye, flight, formation, galaxy, Galaxy Washington, Gas, goddard, goddard space flight, goddard space flight center, greenbelt, greenbelt maryland, importance, intern, investigator, July, maryland, May, million light years, mission, misty, NASA, nasa goddard, Neil Gehrels, night, optical, optical telescope, park, patch, Portrait, processing, Research, ring, satellite, scientist, September, space, space flight center, sparkle, spiral, spiral arms, spiral galaxy, star, star clusters, Star Formation Processes, Stefan Immler, student, summer, swift, swift satellite, task, team, Telescope, time, ultraviolet, Ultraviolet Sources, undergraduate, University, university of maryland at college park, UVOT, view, Washington

World’s observatories watch ‘cool’ star to shed light on mysteries of our galaxy

May 16, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 16 (ANI): The Whole Earth Telescope (WET), a worldwide network of observatories, is observing a cooling star intently, which may shed light on the workings of our own planet and other mysteries of the galaxy.

The dying star, a white dwarf identified as WDJ1524-0030, located in the constellation Ophiuchus in the southern sky, is losing its brightness as it cools, its nuclear fuel spent.

It will be monitored continuously from May 15 to June 11 by WET, a global partnership of telescopes that was formed in 1986.

The thousands of photographs of the white dwarf taken by WET will be e-mailed to the command center at Mt. Cuba Observatory staffed by University of Delaware researchers, for archiving and eventual analysis using the fledgling science of “star quakes” known as asteroseismology.

“A white dwarf is the size of the Earth and as dense as the sun. This star pulsates or quakes as waves of energy travel through it. Its outer surface sloshes from side to side, like waves on the ocean,” said Judi Provencial, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UD and director of the Delaware Asteroseismic Research Center (DARC).

“What is of interest to scientists is the shape of the pulses,” Provencal noted. “From them, we can measure how the atmosphere is moving around in these pulsating stars and figure out what’s going on inside them. This one is really sloshing around,” she added.

Provencal said that WDJ1524-0030 is one of only about 20 percent of the stars in the universe whose atmosphere is composed of helium versus hydrogen.

The WET team hopes to find out the composition of the star’s core, whether hydrogen or oxygen.

The process of discovery will take on the order of two years to stitch together all of the images, analyze the data, interpret the data with the input of the WET community and report the results.

Eventually, the findings will be applied to other stars, including the sun, and to our own planet, according to Provencal.

“We don’t understand the weather on Earth, the transport of energy,” she said. “We don’t understand convection at all.

Hopefully, this field of research, which is still very new, will help every aspect of astronomy,” she added. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: constellation ophiuchus, cuba observatory, darc, dying star, earth telescope, fledgling science, Galaxy Washington, global partnership, nuclear fuel, observatories, Outer Surface, provencal, pulsating stars, quakes, size of the earth, southern sky, Stars In The Universe, university of delaware, white dwarf, whole earth, worldwide network

Supermassive black hole gets kicked out of galaxy

Astronomers get sharpest view ever of star factories in distant galaxy

NASA’s Swift satellite makes best-ever ultraviolet portrait of Andromeda galaxy

World’s observatories watch ‘cool’ star to shed light on mysteries of our galaxy

Search More News

Technology News

Ads