Baby photos from the ultimate edge — a black hole - Astronomers may have lucked into the ultimate in cosmic baby pictures: a voracious black hole fresh from its violent birth.
After watching a nearby star that exploded into a supernova in 1979, astronomers now believe the star's death wasn't an ordinary one. The star's explosion was big enough to cause a black hole to develop in its wake. They think it's a black hole because they see something steadily consuming the gassy remnants of the exploded star, which is a telltale sign of a black hole. It sucks up everything in sight.
An image released by NASA Jan. 5, 2010, shows Sagittarius A, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy made from data provided by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The Chandra image of Sagittarius A and the surrounding region is based on data from a series of observations lasting a total of about one million seconds, or almost two weeks
In this undated NASA-provided X-ray image made by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the supermassive black hole, which is known as Sagittarius A* or Sgr A*, is seen in the middle of the Milky Way. The X-ray glow from the region close to Sgr A* shows that a relatively small number of low mass stars are located near the black hole. The mysterious black hole has helped give birth to a new generation of stars, new observations suggest.
This x-ray image of the Cassiopeia supernova remnant is the official first light image of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Two shock waves are visible: a fast outer shock and a slower inner shock. The inner shock wave is believed to be due to the collision of the ejecta from the supernova explosion with a circumstellar shell of material, heating it to a temperature of ten million degrees. The bright object near the center may be the long sought neutron star or black hole that remained after the explosionthat produced Cassiopeia A. NASA's new $1 billion X-ray telescope is performing as expected, space agency officials and scientists said Thursday, Aug. 26, 1999.
This composite image provided by NASA Wednesday Aug. 20, 2008 shows the active galaxy NGC 1275 (Perseus A). X-ray data from the Chandra's Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer and radio data from NRAO's Very Large Array were combined with optical wavelengths in the red, green and blue from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. In the composite image, the X-ray data contribute to the soft violet shells around the outside of the center. The pinkish lobes toward the center of the galaxy are from radio frequencies. The radio emission, tracing jets from the black hole, fills the X-ray cavities. Dust lanes, star-forming regions, hydrogen filaments, foreground stars, and background galaxies are contributions from the Hubble optical data. The Hubble Space Telescope has found the answer to a long-standing puzzle by seeing the details of giant but delicate filaments shaped by a strong magnetic field around the active galaxy NGC 1275
This image provided by NASA Tuesday Nov. 11, 2009 shows observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory in a collaboration to produce an unprecedented image of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy using infrared light and X-ray light to see through the obscuring dust and reveal the intense activity near the galactic core. Note that the center of the galaxy is located within the bright white region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. The entire image width covers about one-half a degree, about the same angular width as the full moon. Each telescope's contribution is presented in a different color. Yellow represents the near-infrared observations of Hubble. The observations outline the energetic regions where stars are being born as well as reveal hundreds of thousands of stars. Red represents the infrared observations of Spitzer. The radiation and winds from stars create glowing dust clouds that exhibit complex structures from compact, spherical globules to long, stringy filaments. Blue and violet represent the X-ray observations of Chandra. X-rays are emitted by gas heated to millions of degrees by stellar explosions and by outflows from the supermassive black hole in the galaxy's center. The bright blue blob on the left side is emission from a double star system containing either a neutron star or a black hole.
This undated image provided by NASA/CXC/UMass/D. Wang ,from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, shows the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The mosaic of 88 Chandra pointings represents a freeze-frame of the spectacle of stellar evolution, from bright young stars to black holes, in a crowded, hostile environment dominated by a central, supermassive black hole.
Mosaic image of a galactic center taken by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory showing the center region of our Milky Way revealing hundreds of white dwarf stars, neutron stars, and black holes bathed in an incandescent fog of multimillion degree gas. The super massive black hole at the center of the galaxy is located inside a bright white path in the center of the image. The colors indicate X-ray energy bands in red (low), green (medium), and blue (high).
And in this case it's a lot. In the past 30 years since this star exploded, this baby black hole has eaten about the equivalent of the Earth in mass, which is about as big as black hole appetites can get, said Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb. He's co-author of a new paper in the journal New Astronomy and he discussed the findings at a NASA news conference Monday.
On a cosmic scale the mass of the Earth is not an awful lot to eat, but from Earth's point of view, it's kind of awesome, said NASA astrophysicist Kimberly Weaver. "It's like the planet eater in 'Star Trek,'" she said.
Black holes are warped regions in space where it is so dense that nothing — not even light — escapes. Scientists in this case see energy bursts from matter as it is sucked in. That matter is heavy gas from the exploded star, and possibly a partner star that may have been next to it, Weaver said.
"It's the first time we're seeing a black hole being born in a normal supernova," Loeb said. "We're able to learn about environments that cannot be reproduced in the lab and can only be observed in the universe."
While black holes are seen throughout the universe, it is unusual to witness one from near birth that "evolves and changes into its youthful stages," said Weaver. And unlike other black holes, thanks to the keen eye of a Maryland schoolteacher who witnessed the supernova in 1979, astronomers know exactly when this black hole was born, Weaver said.
By continuing to follow the black hole — which is about 50 million light years away — future astronomers will learn just how much material is left over from the star's explosion, said Dan Patnaude of Harvard, a study co-author. This black hole is about five times more massive than our sun and the star that exploded to give it birth was maybe 20 times bigger than our sun.
"This is certainly eating as much as it can," Patnaude said. "This is working as hard as it can to gobble up that material, exactly like a teenager or a toddler."
The images were captured by the Chandra X-Ray space telescope. There is one other possible explanation for what scientists have seen: They could be watching the birth instead of a pulsar wind nebula, like the famous and beautiful crab nebula. But Patnaude said a black hole is more likely.
Either way, this is a great chance to observe a cosmic event from the start, said Alex Filippenko of the University of California at Berkeley who didn't take part in the research. He agrees that the discovery is most likely a black hole. ( Associated Press )
After watching a nearby star that exploded into a supernova in 1979, astronomers now believe the star's death wasn't an ordinary one. The star's explosion was big enough to cause a black hole to develop in its wake. They think it's a black hole because they see something steadily consuming the gassy remnants of the exploded star, which is a telltale sign of a black hole. It sucks up everything in sight.
This composite image provided by NASA, created this month, taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, shows a galaxy where a recent supernova probably resulted in a black hole in the bright white dot near the bottom middle of the picture
An image released by NASA Jan. 5, 2010, shows Sagittarius A, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy made from data provided by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The Chandra image of Sagittarius A and the surrounding region is based on data from a series of observations lasting a total of about one million seconds, or almost two weeks
In this undated NASA-provided X-ray image made by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the supermassive black hole, which is known as Sagittarius A* or Sgr A*, is seen in the middle of the Milky Way. The X-ray glow from the region close to Sgr A* shows that a relatively small number of low mass stars are located near the black hole. The mysterious black hole has helped give birth to a new generation of stars, new observations suggest.
This x-ray image of the Cassiopeia supernova remnant is the official first light image of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Two shock waves are visible: a fast outer shock and a slower inner shock. The inner shock wave is believed to be due to the collision of the ejecta from the supernova explosion with a circumstellar shell of material, heating it to a temperature of ten million degrees. The bright object near the center may be the long sought neutron star or black hole that remained after the explosionthat produced Cassiopeia A. NASA's new $1 billion X-ray telescope is performing as expected, space agency officials and scientists said Thursday, Aug. 26, 1999.
This composite image provided by NASA Wednesday Aug. 20, 2008 shows the active galaxy NGC 1275 (Perseus A). X-ray data from the Chandra's Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer and radio data from NRAO's Very Large Array were combined with optical wavelengths in the red, green and blue from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. In the composite image, the X-ray data contribute to the soft violet shells around the outside of the center. The pinkish lobes toward the center of the galaxy are from radio frequencies. The radio emission, tracing jets from the black hole, fills the X-ray cavities. Dust lanes, star-forming regions, hydrogen filaments, foreground stars, and background galaxies are contributions from the Hubble optical data. The Hubble Space Telescope has found the answer to a long-standing puzzle by seeing the details of giant but delicate filaments shaped by a strong magnetic field around the active galaxy NGC 1275
This image provided by NASA Tuesday Nov. 11, 2009 shows observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory in a collaboration to produce an unprecedented image of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy using infrared light and X-ray light to see through the obscuring dust and reveal the intense activity near the galactic core. Note that the center of the galaxy is located within the bright white region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. The entire image width covers about one-half a degree, about the same angular width as the full moon. Each telescope's contribution is presented in a different color. Yellow represents the near-infrared observations of Hubble. The observations outline the energetic regions where stars are being born as well as reveal hundreds of thousands of stars. Red represents the infrared observations of Spitzer. The radiation and winds from stars create glowing dust clouds that exhibit complex structures from compact, spherical globules to long, stringy filaments. Blue and violet represent the X-ray observations of Chandra. X-rays are emitted by gas heated to millions of degrees by stellar explosions and by outflows from the supermassive black hole in the galaxy's center. The bright blue blob on the left side is emission from a double star system containing either a neutron star or a black hole.
This undated image provided by NASA/CXC/UMass/D. Wang ,from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, shows the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The mosaic of 88 Chandra pointings represents a freeze-frame of the spectacle of stellar evolution, from bright young stars to black holes, in a crowded, hostile environment dominated by a central, supermassive black hole.
Mosaic image of a galactic center taken by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory showing the center region of our Milky Way revealing hundreds of white dwarf stars, neutron stars, and black holes bathed in an incandescent fog of multimillion degree gas. The super massive black hole at the center of the galaxy is located inside a bright white path in the center of the image. The colors indicate X-ray energy bands in red (low), green (medium), and blue (high).
On a cosmic scale the mass of the Earth is not an awful lot to eat, but from Earth's point of view, it's kind of awesome, said NASA astrophysicist Kimberly Weaver. "It's like the planet eater in 'Star Trek,'" she said.
Black holes are warped regions in space where it is so dense that nothing — not even light — escapes. Scientists in this case see energy bursts from matter as it is sucked in. That matter is heavy gas from the exploded star, and possibly a partner star that may have been next to it, Weaver said.
"It's the first time we're seeing a black hole being born in a normal supernova," Loeb said. "We're able to learn about environments that cannot be reproduced in the lab and can only be observed in the universe."
While black holes are seen throughout the universe, it is unusual to witness one from near birth that "evolves and changes into its youthful stages," said Weaver. And unlike other black holes, thanks to the keen eye of a Maryland schoolteacher who witnessed the supernova in 1979, astronomers know exactly when this black hole was born, Weaver said.
By continuing to follow the black hole — which is about 50 million light years away — future astronomers will learn just how much material is left over from the star's explosion, said Dan Patnaude of Harvard, a study co-author. This black hole is about five times more massive than our sun and the star that exploded to give it birth was maybe 20 times bigger than our sun.
"This is certainly eating as much as it can," Patnaude said. "This is working as hard as it can to gobble up that material, exactly like a teenager or a toddler."
The images were captured by the Chandra X-Ray space telescope. There is one other possible explanation for what scientists have seen: They could be watching the birth instead of a pulsar wind nebula, like the famous and beautiful crab nebula. But Patnaude said a black hole is more likely.
Either way, this is a great chance to observe a cosmic event from the start, said Alex Filippenko of the University of California at Berkeley who didn't take part in the research. He agrees that the discovery is most likely a black hole. ( Associated Press )
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