The Whirlpool galaxy seen in both optical (red, green and blue) and X-ray (purple) light. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Wesleyan Univ./R.Kilgard, et al; Optical: NASA/STScI
Posted on 06/03/2014 4:03:33 PM PDT by BenLurkin
In the Milky Way there’s a single X-ray binary — a system consisting of a black hole capturing and heating material from an orbiting companion star — known as Cygnus X-1. But 30 million light-years away in the Whirlpool galaxy, M51, there are hundreds of X-ray points of light and a full 10 X-ray binaries.
Nearly a million seconds of observing time with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed these specks. “This is the deepest, high-resolution exposure of the full disk of any spiral galaxy that’s ever been taken in the X-ray,” said Roy Kilgard, from Wesleyan University, at a talk presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting today in Boston. “It’s a remarkably rich data set.”
Within the image there are 450 X-ray points of light, 10 of which are likely X-ray binaries.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
"My God, it's full of stars."
interesting
It’s so purple..... someone blew up Barney. Finally.
Ewwwww. Oh wait, I thought you said "blew Barney."
lol
Can we schedule hussein’s next vacation there?
I don’t see any black hole.
A little confused here. How can you see a black hole if by definition you cannot see one?
Where do you think all those missing socks go?
It could be black grit on the sensor and way overdue for a cleaning.
Matter falling into a black hole releases a lot of energy on its way down towards that event horizon. That's what can be detected. Often black holes are half of a binary system and eat their partner, creating huge amounts of radiation in the process.
Universal Ping! :-)
Coincidentally, playing on TCM at this moment ...
So you cannot see one, only the effect of something you cannot see. Like you never saw the burgler but something in your home was taken.
But it happens right before your eyes like an invisible burglar — or better, an invisible vandal — walking through your house smashing windows, spray painting walls, opening the fridge and throwing the contents on the floor but you can’t see him. But you know he’s there. You can see he’s there.
Thanks! A little late, but an extra to APoD!
Red Dwarf Ping!
RIMMER: But a Black Hole’s a huge, compacted star! It’s millions of miles wide! Why didn’t you see it on the radar screen?
HOLLY: Well, the thing about a Black Hole - it’s main distinguishing feature - is it’s black. And the thing about space, your basic space colour is black. So how are you s’posed to see them?
RIMMER: But five of them! How can you be ambushed by five Black Holes?
HOLLY: Always the way, isn’t it? You hang around in Deep Space for three million years and you don’t see one. Then, all of a sudden, five all turn up at once.
[later...]
HOLLY: As it transpired, there weren’t any Black Holes.
RIMMER: But you saw them — you saw them on the monitor.
HOLLY: They weren’t Black Holes.
RIMMER: What were they?
HOLLY: Grit. Five specks of grit on the scanner-scope. See, the thing about grit is, it’s black, and the thing about scanner-scopes...
RIMMER: Oh, shut up.
LISTER: (Sighs.) Come on. Let’s go.
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