Posted on 01/26/2014 7:26:30 PM PST by SunkenCiv
One of the most powerful things in the universe wears a sparkly purple coat. Well, at least it looks that way in this image combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. This is an image of the galaxy cluster RX J1532.9+3021... At the cluster's center is one of the most powerful black holes astronomers have ever found. The black hole is surrounded by hot gas, which appears here in purple.
Normally, astronomers would expect dense, hot gas like this to form stars, but they haven't found any evidence of stars here. Instead, they think, the black hole has prevented stars from forming by keeping the gas hot where it would normally cool, drop in pressure, and pull in more gas to form trillions of stars.
The black hole is so powerful, it's created gaps in the gas surrounding it. NASA explains:
The X-ray image shows two large cavities in the hot gas on either side of the central galaxy. The Chandra image has been specially processed to emphasize the cavities. Both cavities are aligned with jets seen in radio images from the VLA [Very Large Array]. The location of the supermassive black hole between the cavities is strong evidence that the supersonic jets generated by the black hole have drilled into the hot gas and pushed it aside, forming the cavities.Astronomers have found other black holes that formed similar cavities, but these are unusually largeabout the size of the Milky Way galaxy.
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
J1532 X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford/J.Hlavacek-Larrondo et al, Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/M.Postman & CLASH team
I thought this has appeared, couldn’t find it, so, here we go, extra to APoD.
Hawking now says black holes don't exist.
Thought I read that Stephen Hawking said black holes don’t exist?
“This and other evidence suggest the black hole could be “ultramassive,” instead of merely supermassive, and have a mass more than 10 billion times that of the sun.” That’s huge!
Black holes are out of sight...
What collapsed to create a hole that big?
That is pretty awesome.
“Thought I read that Stephen Hawking said black holes dont exist?”
Media morons do it again.
What he said was that event horizons probably don’t exist in the form he had previously thought.
Unfortunately, Hawkings don’t know fer sure either.
Wickedly beautiful!
Thanks so much!
Ultramassive a**hole....
But there is “consensus” so Stephen must be a Black Hole Event Horizon denier nut!
That’s because acknowledging that a black hole is black is considered racist.
I suppose Stephen Hawking has never looked into the eyes of der obama and the vacuum between obama’s ears is the envy of black holes everywhere.
Dear Leader's Benghazi story.
“Stephen Hawking now says light and information may be able to escape from black holes...”
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/01/26/stephen-hawking-contradicts-earlier-black-hole-claims/
He also said there is no God. Let’s see if as he gets closer to his own ‘event horizon’ that takes a turn in thought;)
"That way be monsters!"
I think that second pic is actually an ultramassive A-hole.
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