Posted on 08/29/2011 3:44:56 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March. NASA's Swift satellite first alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from the new source in the constellation Draco.
Astronomers soon realized the source, known as Swift J1644+57, was the result of a truly extraordinary event -- the awakening of a distant galaxy's dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The galaxy is so far away, it took the light from the event approximately 3.9 billion years to reach Earth...
Most galaxies, including our own, possess a central supersized black hole weighing millions of times the sun's mass. According to the new studies, the black hole in the galaxy hosting Swift J1644+57 may be twice the mass of the four-million-solar-mass black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy...
Theoretical studies of tidally disrupted stars suggested they would appear as flares at optical and ultraviolet energies...
When first detected March 28, the flares were initially assumed to signal a gamma-ray burst, one of the nearly daily short blasts of high-energy radiation often associated with the death of a massive star and the birth of a black hole in the distant universe. But as the emission continued to brighten and flare, astronomers realized that the most plausible explanation was the tidal disruption of a sun-like star seen as beamed emission.
By March 30, EVLA observations by Zauderer's team showed a brightening radio source centered on a faint galaxy near Swift's position for the X-ray flares. These data provided the first conclusive evidence that the galaxy, the radio source and the Swift event were linked...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Another “extra extra”.
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe · | ||
Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar · | ||
Hey, that cloud is giving us the finger !
Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March..
Please. Nobody tell Bloomberg.
He'll order the evacuation of EARTH!
...............
How does a black hole go dormant?
“How does a black hole go dormant?”
When its event horizon becomes non-eventual.
You don't see it except by the effects from matter being gobbled up by it.
CORRECTION: The event horizon becomes uneventful...(more or less?)
soundtrack to supermassive black hole eating a star: nomnomnomnom
Will the Rev. Jackson be chiming in on this thread because of it’s racist names like ‘black holes’?
Sorry, thought this story was re: Obama.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.