Black Holes

Merging Black Holes Twist And Stretch Space Time

April 15, 2011

Two doughnut-shaped vortexes ejected by a pulsating black hole. Also shown at the center are two red and two blue vortex lines attached to the hole, which will be ejected as a third doughnut-shaped vortex in the next pulsation. Credit: The Caltech/Cornell SXS Collaboration

When black holes slam into each other, the surrounding space and time surge and undulate like a heaving sea during a storm. This warping of space and time is so complicated that physicists haven’t been able to understand the details of what goes on—until now. “We’ve found ways to visualize warped space-time like never before,” says Kip Thorne, Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). By combining theory with computer simulations, Thorne and his colleagues at Caltech, Cornell University, and the National Institute for Theoretical Physics in South Africa have developed conceptual tools...

Hubble Pinpoints Source Of High-Energy Gamma Rays And X-Rays

April 7, 2011

By Michael Muracco

Hubble Space Telescope pinpoints source of high-energy gamma rays and X-rays.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has joined forces with other telescopes to study the source of one of the most puzzling bursts of high-energy gamma rays and X-rays ever observed. More than a week after the burst was first spotted, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade. “We know of objects in our own galaxy that can produce repeated bursts, but they are thousands to millions of times less powerful than the bursts we are seeing now. This is truly extraordinary,” said Andrew Fruchter at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA. Astronomers say they have never seen...

What has Hubble told us about black holes?

February 28, 2011

By Michael Muracco

For centuries, scientists imagined objects so heavy and dense that their gravity might be strong enough to pull anything in – including light. They would be, quite literally, a black hole in space. But it’s only in the past few decades that astronomers have conclusively proved their existence. Today, Hubble lets scientists measure the effects of black holes, make images of their surroundings and glean fascinating insights into the evolution of our cosmos. One of Hubble’s mission objectives at launch was to study black holes, and to test the theory that supermassive black holes lurk in the centres of...

Arp 147: Giant Ring of Black Holes

February 10, 2011

By Michael Muracco

Arp 147 contains the remnant of a spiral galaxy (right) that collided with the elliptical galaxy on the left, producing an expanding wave of star formation that shows up as a blue ring containing in abundance of massive young stars. These stars race through their evolution in a few million years or less and explode as supernovas, leaving behind neutron stars and black holes. A fraction of the neutron stars and black holes will have companion stars, and become bright X-ray sources as they pull in matter from their companions. The nine brilliant X-ray sources scattered around the ring...

Sagittarius A*: The Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole -158 Trillion Miles Away

February 1, 2011

By Michael Muracco

Sagittarius A*: The Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole -158 Trillion Miles Away

“The black hole came into existence billions of years ago, perhaps as very massive stars collapsed at the end of their life cycles and coalesced into a single, supermassive object.” -Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy, UCLA For years, astronomers speculated that a giant, mysterious force lay at the center of the Milky Way 26,000 light years or 158 trillion miles away, but it wasn’t until recently that definitively showed what it was. Ghez’s research focuses on the origin and early life of stars and planets, and the distribution and nature of the matter at the center of...

“Beyond the Event Horizon of a Black Hole is the Beginning of Another Universe”

January 31, 2011

By admin

“Beyond the Event Horizon of a Black Hole is the Beginning of Another Universe”

Do black holes hold the key that could unlock the secrets of our patch of the universe? Some of the world’s leading physicists believe that in the event that quantum effects allow time to extend indefinitely into the past that it could be possible that beyond the event horizon of a black hole is the beginning of another universe. Embedded in the heart of each of the universe’s one trillion galaxies is a supermassive black hole that is roughly one million to one billion times the mass of the sun. About 10 percent of these giant black holes feature...

Massive Black Hole in Messier 87 Weighs The Equivalent of 6.6 Billion of Our Suns

January 31, 2011

By admin

Massive Black Hole in Messier 87 Weighs The Equivalent of 6.6 Billion of Our Suns

A black hole lurking inside a neighboring galaxy, known as M87, weighs in at the equivalent of 6.6 billion of our suns. This black hole is the largest so far detected within our cosmic neighborhood. This enormous mass is the heaviest ever measured for a black hole using a direct technique, researchers said. The super-massive black hole is about 54 million light-years from Earth. While that seems far, it’s actually the closest black hole of its weight class to our planet. “It’s almost on top of us, relatively speaking. Fifty million light-years — that’s our backyard effectively. To have...