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How a Distant Black Hole Devoured a Star [ Swift J1644+57 ]
ScienceDaily ^ | Thursday, August 25, 2011 | NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

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 ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; stringtheory; xplanets
source for this larger version is Daily Mail:

Super-massive black hole caught shredding a star to pieces for the first time

1 posted on 08/29/2011 3:45:01 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: brytlea; cripplecreek; decimon; bigheadfred; KoRn; Grammy; married21; steelyourfaith; Mmogamer; ...

Another “extra extra”.


2 posted on 08/29/2011 3:49:48 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: 75thOVI; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; ...



3 posted on 08/29/2011 3:50:08 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: KevinDavis; annie laurie; Knitting A Conundrum; Viking2002; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Mmogamer; ...
 
X-Planets
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Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

4 posted on 08/29/2011 3:50:14 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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http://www.space.com/12719-black-hole-swallows-star-nasa-swift.html


5 posted on 08/29/2011 3:51:01 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: AdmSmith; bvw; callisto; ckilmer; dandelion; ganeshpuri89; gobucks; KevinDavis; Las Vegas Dave; ...

Thanks, uh, oh-oh, I forget who, for the link to a different source. Stop hangin' out at that "not welcome on FR" place right this minute! :')

· String Theory Ping List ·
721 posted on 04/24/2007 8:14:42 PM PDT by DocRock
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6 posted on 08/29/2011 3:51:09 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv

Hey, that cloud is giving us the finger !


7 posted on 08/29/2011 4:14:48 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Amber Lamps !"~~)
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To: 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..

Please. Nobody tell Bloomberg.
He'll order the evacuation of EARTH!
...............

8 posted on 08/29/2011 4:17:46 AM PDT by Condor51 (The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits [A.Einstein])
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To: SunkenCiv
the awakening of a distant galaxy's dormant black hole...

How does a black hole go dormant?

9 posted on 08/29/2011 4:24:13 AM PDT by TangoLimaSierra (To the left the truth looks Right-Wing.)
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To: TangoLimaSierra

“How does a black hole go dormant?”

When its event horizon becomes non-eventual.


10 posted on 08/29/2011 4:47:24 AM PDT by equaviator ("There's a (datum) plane on the horizon coming in...see it?")
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To: TangoLimaSierra
How does a black hole go dormant?

You don't see it except by the effects from matter being gobbled up by it.

11 posted on 08/29/2011 4:51:21 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (When you've only heard lies your entire life, the truth sounds insane.)
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To: equaviator

CORRECTION: The event horizon becomes uneventful...(more or less?)


12 posted on 08/29/2011 4:54:48 AM PDT by equaviator ("There's a (datum) plane on the horizon coming in...see it?")
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To: fieldmarshaldj

soundtrack to supermassive black hole eating a star: nomnomnomnom


13 posted on 08/29/2011 5:19:50 AM PDT by corkoman (Steadfast and Loyal)
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To: SunkenCiv

Will the Rev. Jackson be chiming in on this thread because of it’s racist names like ‘black holes’?


14 posted on 08/29/2011 5:49:21 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: SunkenCiv

Sorry, thought this story was re: Obama.


15 posted on 08/29/2011 6:30:46 AM PDT by Doc Savage ("I've shot people I like a lot more,...for a lot less!" Raylan Givins)
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To: SunkenCiv


16 posted on 08/29/2011 11:07:29 AM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet)
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