Posted on 04/30/2008 8:00:18 AM PDT by RightWhale
Garching, Germany (SPX) Apr 30, 2008
By an enormous burst of gravitational waves that accompanies the merger of two black holes the newly formed black hole was ejected from its galaxy. This extreme ejection event, which had been predicted by theorists, has now been observed in nature for the first time. The team led by Stefanie Komossa from the Max Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) thereby opened a new window into observational astrophysics. The discovery will have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution in the early Universe, and also provides observational confirmation of a key prediction from the General Theory of Relativity (Astrophysical Journal Letters, May 10, 2008). When two black holes merge, waves of gravitational radiation ripple outward through the galaxy at the speed of light. Because the waves are emitted mainly in one direction, the black hole itself is pushed in the opposite direction, much like the recoil that accompanies the firing of a rifle or the launching of a rocket. The black hole is booted from its normal location in the nucleus of the galaxy. If the kick velocity is high enough, the black hole can escape the galaxy completely.
The MPE team's discovery verifies, for the first time, that these extreme events actually occur; up to now they had only been simulated in supercomputers. The recoiling black hole caught the astrophysicists' attention by its high speed - 2650 km/s - which was measured via the broad emission lines of gas around the black hole. At this speed, one could travel from New York to Los Angeles in just under two seconds. Because of the tremendous power of the recoil the black hole, which has a mass of several 100 millions solar masses, was catapulted from the core of its parent galaxy.
In addition to the emission lines from gas bound to the recoiling black hole, the astronomers were also struck by a remarkably narrow set of emission lines originating from gas left behind in the galaxy. This gas has been excited by radiation from the recoiling black hole. Gas that moves with the black hole - the so-called accretion disk gas - continues to "feed" the recoiling black hole for millions of years. In the process of being accreted, this gas shines in X-rays.
In fact the team around Komossa also detected this X-ray emission from the disk around the black hole at a distance of 10 billion light years: by chance the region was scanned by the satellite ROSAT, and at the extreme end of the visual field an X-ray source was discovered the position of which corresponds with the distant galaxy.
The new discovery is also important because it indirectly proves that black holes do in fact merge and that the mergers are sometimes accompanied by large kicks. This process had been postulated by theory, but never before confirmed via direct observation. Another implication of the discovery is that there must be galaxies without black holes in their nuclei - as well as black holes which float forever in space between the galaxies.
This raises new questions for the scientists: Did galaxies and black holes form and evolve jointly in the early Universe? Or was there a population of galaxies which had been deprived of their central black holes? And if so, how was the evolution of these galaxies different from that of galaxies that retained their black holes?
In a close interplay between theory and observation, the astrophysicists prepare to answer these questions. Various detectors on earth and in space, for example the space interferometer LISA, will be set on the track of gravitational waves. The discovery of the MPE team will provide new impetus for theorists to develop more detailed models of the superkicks and their consequences for the evolution of black holes and galaxies.
That galaxy managed it, why can’t we deal with Jimmy Carter the same way?
The General/Chat/ Astronomy/Science forums are ideally-suited for this topic.
Same thing happened to me when I was 18.
In fairness to my parents, though, while I wasn’t a black hole when I was 18, I was an @$$hole.
Very interesting!
Wow. Imagine that... what kind of forces are needed to kick a black hole out of the gravity well of not just one black hole, but the center of a galaxy?
OMG, that was one hell of a recoil to kick that much mass away at 2650km/s! Just... WOW!
Meanwhile, the grandparent galaxy flinches in a typical way when the black hole’s friends come around.
Its called a black hole because you cant SEE IT...
Duuuuugh!...
This plan includes the sale of event horizon credits.
How is anybody expected to believe that a black hole would ever form up via gravity (or that there actually are such things as black holes) given that?
Going to be interesting to see how many supermassive black holes they think are careening through the universe at relativistic speeds. Scary thought, one of those things coming at you... Quick, somebody break out the solar sails and deflect it!
My shoulder's hurting just thinking about it.
LOL
You mean halfway to the edge of the *observable* universe. We can only 'see' or detect things that are close enough for their light to have reached us during the lifespan of the universe. And the universe can, theoretically, expand FASTER than light (in apparent violation of Einstein's special relativity). However, this is only because the phenomenon doesn't involve an object physically moving *through* space, but rather the dimensionality of space-time stretching.
FGI: one light year, the *distance* light travels in 1 year--at 186,000 miles per second, is roughly 6 trillion miles! 6,000 BILLION miles!
FGI (I think I just made it up?) = "for general information".
Microtubules at the quantum level contain our consciousness says Penrose. Timeless and therefore eternal. Time enough to study the basic tools of cosmology.
We don’t actually know that either.
Lol, I hear ‘ya! It’d totally obliterate my shoulder (and probably every molecule in my body) to fire an ordinary rifle (if such a rifle could be called ordinary) with that kind of muzzle velocity, never mind one that could shoot out several hundred solar masses... It’s just so... Inconceivable!
That would make us forget about our ‘recession’ and ‘food crisis’ and ‘Rev Wright’ for a minute or two.
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