Supermassive Black Hole Shows Strange Gas Movements

universetoday.com ^ | June 20, 2014 | Elizabeth Howell on

[BenLurkin]

Sometimes it takes a second look — or even more — at an astronomical object to understand what’s going on. This is what happened after astronomers obtained this image of NGC 5548 using the Hubble Space Telescope in 2013. While crunching the data, they saw some gas moving around the galaxy in a way that they did not understand.

From the supermassive black hole embedded in the galaxy’s heart, the researchers detected gas moving outward quite quickly — blocking about 90% of the X-rays being emitted from the black hole, a common feature of objects of this type. So, astronomers marshalled a bunch of telescopes to figure out the answer.

Here’s what they knew before: black holes force matter into a spiral that surround the object, creating a flat plane of material known as an accretion disc. Heating in this disc sends out the aforementioned X-rays as well as some ultraviolet radiation. But NGC 5548 is doing something different.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

How does time react in a black hole? If not even light can escape, then it must warp time and space, so does that mean like a minute of our time would equal an infinite amount of time in a black hole?

[RichInOC]

There’s something out there...and it’s farting.

[Fungi]

Man knows one tenth of one percent of nothing, and we are not getting smarter, never mind common sense. In the future this will be irrelevant.

[for-q-clinton]

Oh I thought this was talking about Obama’s ass.

[TigersEye]

I never noticed that before.

[UnwashedPeasant]

"Supermassive Black Hole Shows Strange Gas Movements"

[pgyanke]

I went to a planetarium show with my family not too long ago. The “astronomer” opined at the beginning that the laws of physics break down as you approach and cross the event horizon. He then went on to tell us that time freezes at the event horizon so you could actually watch the universe age and pass away there. Uh, dude... you already said the laws of physics break down... put away the equation and picture matter and energy screaming its way to a superdense core, not hanging out watching the universe go by.

[Jack Hydrazine]

I think the little boy on the right visited the event horizon! He's just watching the universe go right on by.

[ansel12]

Supermassive Black Hole Shows Strange Gas Movements

I didn't read the article, but is this another one of those cheap shots at America's film maker, Michael Moore?

[lafroste]

How does time react in a black hole? If not even light can escape, then it must warp time and space, so does that mean like a minute of our time would equal an infinite amount of time in a black hole?

You are pretty close to the truth. A black hole, I believe, is that region of space where time obtains a value of zero. In other words time stops. Assuming you could get inside the event horizon without getting ripped apart (you can't), you would never know it because you would never leave that instant in time.

[FredZarguna]

Outside of the event horizon and at the boundary the laws of physics still obtain. [And actually, the statement that the laws of physics "break down" inside the Schwarzild Radius is empirically false: we do not know that they break down, and based on what we are able to surmise, some laws inside appear to be preserved.] As you near the event horizon from outside of the Schwarzild Radius, time slows down very rapidly, and when you reach the event horizon time stops altogether. Unfortunately, the tidal forces [difference in gravitational attraction] near the event horizon are so enormous that no observer could survive the experience.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“Assuming you could get inside the event horizon without getting ripped apart (you can’t), “

Spaghettification.

[rawcatslyentist]

Some of the butter on the lobster might have gone rancid?

[samtheman]

NGC 5548 is 245 million light years away.

[broken_arrow1]

Time would appear to move normal to the space traveler, but slowed to the observer.

[broken_arrow1]

If the traveler were somehow able to break free of the event horizon and return to Earth, he would find that the Earth and likely the entire solar system are gone - vaporized in a super nova millions of years prior to his return...

[left that other site]

darn it...you beat me to it!

[RoosterRedux]

The Flotus has flatus?