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    Hubble sees a Supermassive and Super-Hungry Galaxy

    January 12, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Hubble sees a supermassive and super-hungry galaxy

    This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4845, constellation Virgo. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and S. Smartt (Queen’s University Belfast)

    Spiral galaxy NGC 4845 is seen >65 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. The galaxy’s orientation clearly reveals the galaxy’s striking spiral structure: a flat and dust-mottled disk surrounding a bright galactic bulge. NGC 4845’s glowing center hosts a gigantic version of a black hole, known as a supermassive black hole. The presence of a black hole in a distant galaxy like NGC 4845 can be inferred from its effect on the galaxy’s innermost stars; these stars experience a strong gravitational pull from the black hole and whizz around the galaxy’s center much faster than otherwise.

    From investigating the m...

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    Black Holes could grow as large as 50 Billion Suns before their food crumbles into Stars, research shows

    December 18, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist's concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    This artist’s concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    In a study titled ‘How Big Can a Black Hole Grow?’, Professor Andrew King from the University of Leicester’s Department of Physics and Astronomy explores supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies, around which are regions of space where gas settles into an orbiting disc.This gas can lose energy and fall inwards, feeding the black hole. But these discs are known to be unstable and prone to crumbling into stars.

    Professor King calculated how big a black hole would have to be for its outer edge to keep a disc from forming, coming up with the figure of 50 billion solar masses...

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    Gamma Rays Detected from Galaxy Halfway across the Visible Universe

    December 16, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist's conception shows a blazar -- the core of an active galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole. The VERITAS array has detected gamma rays from a blazar known as PKS 1441+25. Researchers found that the source of the gamma rays was within the relativistic jet but surprisingly far from the galaxy's black hole. The emitting region is at least a tenth of a light-year away, and most likely is 5 light-years away. Credit: M. Weiss/CfA

    This artist’s conception shows a blazar — the core of an active galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole. The VERITAS array has detected gamma rays from a blazar known as PKS 1441+25. Researchers found that the source of the gamma rays was within the relativistic jet but surprisingly far from the galaxy’s black hole. The emitting region is at least a tenth of a light-year away, and most likely is 5 light-years away. Credit: M. Weiss/CfA

    In April 2015, after traveling for about half the age of the universe, a flood of powerful gamma rays from a distant galaxy slammed into Earth’s atmosphere. That torrent generated a cascade of light – a shower that fell onto the waiting mirrors of the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) in Arizona...

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    Scientists get 1st Glimpse of Black Hole Eating Star, ejecting High-Speed Flare

    November 27, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A black hole devouring a star. Credit: NASA

    A black hole devouring a star. Credit: NASA

    An international team of astrophysicists led by a Johns Hopkins University scientist has for the first time witnessed a star being swallowed by a black hole and ejecting a flare of matter moving at nearly the speed of light.
    The finding tracks the star—about the size of our sun—as it shifts from its customary path, slips into the gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole and is sucked in. “These events are extremely rare,” van Velzen said. “It’s the first time we see everything from the stellar destruction followed by the launch of a conical outflow, also called a jet, and we watched it unfold over several months.”

    Astrophysicists had predicted that when a black hole is force-fed a large amount of gas, in this case a whole star, then a ...

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