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    Shocking case of Indigestion in Supermassive Black Hole

    July 4, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Left: Image of the Whirlpool galaxy and NGC 5195. Credit: Jon Christensen. Right: False colour image of NGC 5195 created by combining the VLA 20 cm radio image (red), the Chandra X-ray image (green), and the Hubble Space telescope H-alpha image (blue). The image shows the X-ray and H-alpha arcs, as well as the radio outflows from the supermassive black hole at the centre of NGC 5195. Credits: NRAO / AUI / NSF / NASA / CXC / NASA / ESA / STScI / U. Manchester / Rampadarath et al. Right inset: e-MERLIN maps of the nuclear region of NGC 5195 at 1.4 GHz (left) and 5 GHz (right). The images display a partially resolved source with possible parsec-scale outflows. Credit: e-MERLIN / U. Manchester / Rampadarath et al. Click for a larger image

    Left: Image of the Whirlpool galaxy and NGC 5195. Credit: Jon Christensen. Right: False colour image of NGC 5195 created by combining the VLA 20 cm radio image (red), the Chandra X-ray image (green), and the Hubble Space telescope H-alpha image (blue). The image shows the X-ray and H-alpha arcs, as well as the radio outflows from the supermassive black hole at the centre of NGC 5195. Credits: NRAO / AUI / NSF / NASA / CXC / NASA / ESA / STScI / U. Manchester / Rampadarath et al. Right inset: e-MERLIN maps of the nuclear region of NGC 5195 at 1.4 GHz (left) and 5 GHz (right). The images display a partially resolved source with possible parsec-scale outflows. Credit: e-MERLIN / U. Manchester / Rampadarath et al. Click for a larger image

    A multi-wavelength study of a pair of colliding galaxie...

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    Scientists Identify a Black Hole Choking on Stardust

    March 17, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In this artist's rendering, a thick accretion disk has formed around a supermassive black hole following the tidal disruption of a star that wandered too close. Stellar debris has fallen toward the black hole and collected into a thick chaotic disk of hot gas. Flashes of X-ray light near the center of the disk result in light echoes that allow astronomers to map the structure of the funnel-like flow, revealing for the first time strong gravity effects around a normally quiescent black hole. Credit: NASA/Swift/Aurore Simonnet, Sonoma State University

    In this artist’s rendering, a thick accretion disk has formed around a supermassive black hole following the tidal disruption of a star that wandered too close. Stellar debris has fallen toward the black hole and collected into a thick chaotic disk of hot gas. Flashes of X-ray light near the center of the disk result in light echoes that allow astronomers to map the structure of the funnel-like flow, revealing for the first time strong gravity effects around a normally quiescent black hole. Credit: NASA/Swift/Aurore Simonnet, Sonoma State University

    Data suggest black holes swallow stellar debris in bursts...

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    Astronomers discover Cosmic Double Whammy

    January 6, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Galaxy cluster. Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO, TIFR/NCRA/GMRT, NAOJ/Subaru: R. van Weeren et al

    Galaxy cluster. Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO, TIFR/NCRA/GMRT, NAOJ/Subaru: R. van Weeren et al

    An international team of astronomers, including Lancaster’s David Sobral, has discovered a cosmic one-two punch never seen before. 2 of the most powerful phenomena in the Universe – a supermassive black hole and the collision of giant galaxy clusters – have combined to create a stupendous cosmic particle accelerator. By combining data from some of the best X-ray, optical and radio telescopes in the world, researchers have found out what happens when matter ejected by a giant black hole is swept up in the merger of two enormous galaxy clusters.

    This cosmic double whammy is found in a pair of colliding galaxy clusters called Abell 3411 and Abell 3412 located about 2 billion light years from Earth...

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    The Brightest Flash of Light in the Cosmos could be a rare event involving a Star and a Supermassive Black Hole

    December 16, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In just the right conditions, the destruction of a star in a black hole's gravitational tide should produce an unusual flash of light. Credit: Chandra/Harvard

    In just the right conditions, the destruction of a star in a black hole’s gravitational tide should produce an unusual flash of light. Credit: Chandra/Harvard

    When astronomers and astrophysicists observe flashes of light in the dark sky, they assume they have seen a supernova. Possibly a star has burnt up its supply of nuclear fuel and collapsed, throwing off its outer layers into space; or maybe a dense white dwarf siphoned off material from a companion star until it exploded from excess weight. But a flash of light observed on June 14, 2015 did not fit any of the usual models.

    For one thing, the intensity of the light was double that of the brightest supernova recorded up to that point. So astrophysicists were already asking what process could have caused it...

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