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    ALMA tagged posts

    AI and Physics Combine to Reveal the 3D Structure of a Flare Erupting around a Black Hole

    April 23, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A swirling circle of reddish striations on the left. On the right is a diagram showing those striations' movements.
    (Left) The Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Right) screeshots from a 3D simulation of flares around Sgr A* (Image credit: EHT Collaboration/Aviad Levis)

    Scientists believe the environment immediately surrounding a black hole is tumultuous, featuring hot magnetized gas that spirals in a disk at tremendous speeds and temperatures. Astronomical observations show that within such a disk, mysterious flares occur up to several times a day, temporarily brightening and then fading away.

    Now a team led by Caltech scientists has used telescope data and an artificial intelligence (AI) computer-vision technique to recover the first three-dimensional video showing what such flares could look like around SagittariusA* (Sgr A*) the supermassive black hole at the heart o...

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    Gas on the run – ALMA spots the Shadow of a Molecular Outflow from a Quasar when the Universe was less than one billion years old

    February 7, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The molecular gas outflow from the quasar includes hydroxyl (OH) (top). Due to the motion of the molecular gas toward the observer, the OH peak in the absorption spectrum (bottom, dashed blue line) appears at a shorter wavelength (solid blue line), a phenomenon known as the Doppler effect. (Illustration: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) modified from Dragan Salak, et al. The Astrophysical Journal. February 1, 2024)
    The molecular gas outflow from the quasar includes hydroxyl (OH) (top). Due to the motion of the molecular gas toward the observer, the OH peak in the absorption spectrum (bottom, dashed blue line) appears at a shorter wavelength (solid blue line), a phenomenon known as the Doppler effect. (Illustration: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) modified from Dragan Salak, et al. The Astrophysical Journal. February 1, 2024)

    Theoretical predictions have been confirmed with the discovery of an outflow of molecular gas from a quasar when the Universe was less than a billion years old.

    A quasar is a compact region powered by a supermassive black hole located in the center of a massive galaxy.

    They are extremely luminous, with a point-like appearance similar to stars, and are extremely distant from Earth...

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    Unexpected Chemistry reveals Cosmic Star Factories´ Secrets

    December 17, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Galaxy illustration with molecules
    Light from many different molecules reveals the secrets of distant star factories. This illustration shows the many molecules found in the quasar APM 08279+5255, together with a Hubble telescope image of a similar galaxy in the nearby universe, IC 5063, which also has an active supermassive black hole at its centre. Background image credits: NASA, ESA & W. P. Maksym (CfA); Jmol (molecules); R. Cumming (montage)Photographer: NASA, ESA & W. P. Maksym (CfA); Jmol (molecules); R. Cumming (montage)

    Two galaxies in the early universe, which contain extremely productive star factories, have been studied by a team of scientists led by Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden...

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    Mystery resolved: Blackhole Feeding and Feedback at the Center of an Active Galaxy

    November 9, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An international research team has recently observed the Circinus galaxy, which is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, with high enough resolution to gain further insights into the gas flows to and from the black hole at its galactic nucleus.

    An international research team led by Takuma Izumi, an assistant professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, has observed in high resolution (approximately 1 light year) the active galactic nucleus of the Circinus Galaxy — one of the closest major galaxies to the Milky Way. The observation was made possible by the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) astronomical observatory in Chile.

    This breakthrough marks the world’s first quantitative measurement at this scale of gas flows and their structures o...

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