How Do Black Holes Control Star Birth? - http://clapway.com/2015/08/09/black-holes-controls-star-birth-101/

Yesterday, NASA released news that will help us understand the formation of oval galaxies. Specifically, the new data answers some old questions about why oval galaxies take so long to form. It turns out that the way black holes control the proto-matter of a baby galaxy actually regulate star birth as the galaxy takes shape around it.

The Observation of Black Holes

The details of this scientific study can be found in two journals released in June: The Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Despite the fact that the findings have been available for a little over a month, news has only recently been broached on the subject. The results were discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope.

What Hubble’s recent findings tell us is that when a black hole is allowed to play a key role in star birth, the new system becomes autonomous very rapidly. This means that each factor involved in the generation of stars has the potential to skew or perfect the creation process.

Scientists have also observed that high energy jets, called Gamma-Ray Bursts, are shot out from the black hole into the surrounding gas, heating the surrounding proto-matter enough to preclude its falling back to the black hole. To better understand what is going on, scientists use the analogy of a brewing thunderstorm; the gases that stay in the sky are the heated gases which never return to the black hole’s system. The falling rain, however, represents the portions of the system which are recollected into a galaxy.

However, the thunderstorm has limited mobility or freedom to reshape itself because of the black hole’s presence, as mentioned previously. This is ultimately how the black hole controls star birth. For a very long time, no one was sure why oval galaxies grew so slowly despite an overwhelming abundance of gas.

But how exactly is it slowed? As mentioned previously, when the gas is heated by the jets ejected by the black hole, the overall kinetic energy is too high for gravity (which is actually the weakest of the cosmic forces) to pull the proto-matter back into the galaxy.

In other, analogous words, this injection of kinetic energy prevents a majority of the ‘raindrops’ from falling onto the ‘ground.’ So while it is only sprinkling on the ground, the clouds are filled with rain particles that are just too energetic to let go and fall.

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How Do Black Holes Control Star Birth?

Brown Dwarfs Share the Same Making Process as Stars - http://clapway.com/2015/07/24/brown-dwarfs-share-the-same-making-process-as-stars654/

It’s hard to believe that only twenty years ago, in 1995, the first dwarf was discovered. It’s even harder to believe the substellar object was found so late when it had been a theory since the sixties.

Yet, so much can happen in so little amount of time. Recently on the astronomy front, a brown dwarf was observed to have shot off some jets, which is pretty cool for a couple of reasons.

But just in case you were confused about this and are not familiar with astronomy all too much, brown dwarfs are objects in space that are classified between being gas giants and stars. Since they navigate the middle area, it’s been tough trying to guess how they form, as not much is known about them.

Yet, most of the theories said that the dwarfs were more than likely similar to stars in how they form. So, everyone tended to go along with it, and that is why the news today is so exciting.

By studying these masses, we now understand the universe better, which is why a press release by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory spoke about the jets released by brown dwarfs in observation.

The Study about Brown Dwarfs

To help understand brown dwarfs better, an observation was conducted 450 light years away from Earth. There in the bull constellation, four of the brown dwarfs in the sample emitted jets.

This was a tad odd as this behavior usually found in stars bigger during the early part of their formation. So, scientists were a bit thrown off by this. The instruments that detected the jets relayed info by the Karl G. Jansky VLA by radio observation. Thereafter, the dwarfs were observed by different instruments in order to say that this was a real finding and not a fluke or false finding.

finding confirmed, then published

Once it was confirmed, the findings were then published in the Astrophysical Journal on the 30th of June. For all involved and the science community, the findings present the first time that a dwarf was observed displaying such a behavior. No other dwarf has been seen shooting jets in an early part of its formation.

This would mean that the theory that dwarfs form similarly to stars despite being too small to have Hydrogen-1 fusion reactions at their cores and such holds true. If dwarfs had not emitted jets or done anything like this, it would mean that the dwarfs have a similar formation to that of planets.

brown dwarf formation makes it the star’s little brother

So what does this mean? Now, just think as dwarfs as the little brother or sister to the stars. Or better yet, think of it as mini me, without as much power as a star and less mass.

Thus, there is one mystery solved about the universe, only a billion more to go. Further studies may reveal more about the behavior about dwarfs so keep a look out for those.

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Brown Dwarfs Share the Same Making Process as Stars

#NuSTAR and its quest for #blackhole info. - http://clapway.com/2015/07/12/the-most-important-things-to-know-about-black-holes-987/

Like many other forces of nature as well as mysteries humanity has yet to explain, very little is known about black holes. Among the populace, there is much speculation about these strange anomalies. Thanks to NASA’s NuSTAR, now researchers know a little bit more about black holes. In fact, NuSTAR has found five already since its launch in 2012.

What is a black hole?

A black hole is what remains after a star that is many times bigger than our sun explodes. All the pressure that builds up from that explosion causes (what some believe to be) the core of the star, to condense into the size of a large city.

Don’t be fooled by its small size, though. Even though this core is so small, its gravitational pull is so strong, NASA says that even light cannot escape its pull.

How many black holes are there?

While it is speculated and theorized that there are a significant amount of black holes in the galaxy and universe, they are actually very difficult to find. The black holes are shrouded by dust and gases that are left over from the explosion and from everything it pulls in. And with no light emitting near the hole without getting sucked in, it is incredibly hard to find black holes. Scientists generally have to look for blank spaces where there probably should be something and estimate if there should be a black hole there.

What is this NuSTAR?

NuSTAR, or the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array is essentially a giant telescope that NASA launched into space. It uses high energy X-rays to collect data. These X-rays make it significantly easier to find black holes as it can easily penetrate through the gases and dust surrounding them. As was stated before, it has already found five. While it is indeed easier to find the black holes, scientists still need to know where to look.

What is there to be learned from black holes?

Many scientists and researchers believe that black holes will help uncover the secrets of a very illusive matter: dark matter. Dark matter is a form of matter that cannot be seen or recorded with any known type of technology. Even without being able to see it, however, scientists are sure that it is there. Unsure of what exactly it is, they have labeled it ‘dark matter’.

It was stated in the Astrophysical Journal that roughly 80% of the universe is made up of this dark matter.

Scientists hope that by learning more about black holes, they will learn more about dark matter, and in doing so, learn more about the natural order of this universe.

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The Most Important Things to Know About Black Holes