Scientists recently uncovered a #space wonder: a #blackhole - wait, make that two - located in a #quasar. - http://clapway.com/2015/08/31/double-black-hole-quasar123/

Quasars are the most energetic members of a compact region at the center of a galaxy known as active galactic nucleus (AGN). They are considered to be among the brightest objects in the known universe, comprised of superheated regions of gas and dust that surround black holes. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers were recently able to spot a unique quasar, boasting a double black hole, located in the closest galaxy to Earth. The two massive celestial bodies were found “furiously whirling” around each other, producing the incredible amount of energy need to power the quasar, according to a report by Popular Science.

THE SCIENCE OF THE QUASAR AND BINARY BLACK HOLES

The “black-hole duo” or double black hole was discovered in the Markarian 231 (Mrk 231) galaxy by a group of astronomers in a project led by the University of Oklahoma. The rare discovery was made after scientists examined archived ultraviolet radiation observational data emitted from the center of Mrk 231, located 581 million light-years away from our Earth.

But this quasar is not a typical one, leading scientists to describe its properties as ‘extreme and surprising.” According to Daily Mail, the ultraviolet glow of the accretion disk was seen “abruptly dropping off towards the center,” rather than glowing as a whole, which is the case for single black holes.

This observation led scientists to conclude that the disk is carved out by two black holes orbiting each other. According to Youjun Lu of the National Astronomical Observatories of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the finding is extremely exciting as it “paves a new way to systematically search binary black holes via the nature of their ultraviolet light emission.”

The structure of our universe, such as those giant galaxies and clusters of galaxies, grows by merging smaller systems into larger ones, and binary black holes are natural consequences of these mergers of galaxies,’ added co-investigator Xinyu Dai from the University of Oklahoma.

According to Insight Ticker, the bigger black hole is an estimated 150 million times heavier than our own sun, and its smaller counterpart – believed to be the remnant of another galaxy – weights 4 million solar masses.. The binary black holes are predicted to orbit around each other every 1.2 years; on the other hand, the merging process, which eventually causes the larger hole to swallow the smaller one, takes hundreds of thousands of years. The resulting combination creates a ”firestorm of star birth”, producing stars at a rate that is 100 times greater than that of our own Milky Way – a phenomenon researchers refer to as a “firestorm of star birth.”

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Binary Black Holes In Quasar Astound Astronomers

%A pair of #blackholes in merging #galaxies could potentially create a slingshot effect, shooting #binarystars out, similar to a recent outcast #supernova.% - http://clapway.com/2015/08/16/origins-of-the-outcast-supernova-099/

THE STAR THAT WAS OUSTED

When news first came out from NASA about an amalgam of stars that were kicked out of the galaxy by a gigantic black hole, it sparked intrigue. However, the news about the star was soon accompanied by the ousted supernova which it eventually turned into.

In lieu of this news that was released on the 13th of August, a paper was published with the findings of the phenomenon in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The findings include the author’s theory on the origins of the outcast supernova.

LEARNING MORE ABOUT THE OUTCAST SUPERNOVA

What is known about it is that the stars were flung out of the Milky Way by the gigantic black hole to where it say outside the system at a fast rate. However what was an interesting observation was that in studying the Hubble’s older images of the stars speeding to the outskirts was that the galaxies around were old and mergers.

Additionally, the location of the supernova indicated the stars that formed the supernova were old as well. Following this line of thought, the supernova may have had a companion, one that originally triggered the transition into supernova, becoming the outcast supernova the Hubble saw.

THE TRANSITION FROM BINARY STAR TO SUPERNOVA

Ryan Foley, the author of the aforementioned paper published a few days prior, theorized that a pair of black holes in merging galaxies could potentially create a slingshot effect to shoot the binary stars out into the universe just like it did with the outcast supernova. The process involves stars getting dragged into  a black hole toward the center of the galaxy, and then get precariously close to another, external black hole that flings the unfortunate stars out of the galaxy.

After the stars are flung out, they slowly move closer and closer together, speeding up all stellar bodies’ aging process. The reasoning is that the stars grouped together are mostly white dwarfs; quite old, and at such magnificent speeds one dwarf shreds another.

As the remnants of the shredded dwarf hit the remaining one, it triggers the explosion needed to create a supernova. Thus, we have the outcast supernova without the trademark mega-explosion one would expect.

This brings us to the more interesting of why these things occurred. To keep up with the latest findings of the Hubble Telescope, you can follow it here.

DODGE THE SUPERNOVA BY STAYING IN THE KNOW WITH BRANDI

Origins of the Outcast Supernova

This #GammaRay burst is outsizing reality and turning toward the #SciFi of the video game world. - http://clapway.com/2015/08/05/halo-the-cosmos-evolved-for-master-chief-253/

Our children may never know the revolutionary pleasure the video game Halo: Combat Evolved was when it appeared with a story, plot and overall entertainment value that put everything else to shame. But the universe won’t. We found Halo. In a manner of speaking. Astronomers and the general public have been inspired by the amalgam of structures discovered in deep space, however, today they announced the existence of an unimaginably massive structure composed of a loose ellipse of galaxies, roughly 5 billion light years in diameter.

EVEN MASTER CHIEF CAN’T LAP THIS HALO

This intergalactic halo was limned indirectly by 9 observed gamma-ray bursts, and has been triangulated at about 7 billion light years’ distance. From the ground, the ring spans a distance that’s 70 times the diameter of a full moon.

WHAT ARE GAMMA-RAY BURSTS?

When a super-massive star runs out of hydrogen, instead of just expanding and eventually releasing its outer layers in a relatively calm exhalation (like our sun will), it violently implodes, moving into itself so rapidly that the curvature of space time itself cannot keep up with the increasing gravity well, and a black hole forms. When it’s born, the black hole releases spectacular beams of energy coming out at a normal angle with respect to the black hole’s rotation. If earth is lucky (or unlucky) enough to be aligned with these beams, a climactic signal registers on scientists’ equipment, and with the information contained in the signal (e.g., direction, magnitude, dissipation), astronomers are able to ascertain the distance and location of the gamma-ray burst.

You can actually look up all observed gamma-ray bursts to date on the Gamma Ray Burst Online Index, which catalogues each and every gamma-ray burst’s position, so you can see where we fit into the big black picture. Gulp.

BUT WHAT ABOUT HALO?

The thing is that these 9 gamma-ray bursts, or rather black holes, must be somehow interacting, related, connected, since they are a similar distance from earth. The researchers involved have shared that there is actually a 1 in 20,000 chance that gamma-ray bursts would be distributed in such a way so closely resembling the Halo of science fiction. This actually means that this impossibly macro-geometry is actually a very likely phenomenon.

But latest cosmological models preclude the very possibility of such cosmic structures.

COSMIC CONTRADICTIONS

Currently, cosmology (the study of the cosmos), holds that the universe ought to have a fairly uniform distribution of matter and energy on macro scales. This is actually a precept of the science, called the “Cosmological Principle,” and it’s already found ground in the form of NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and Europe’s Planck Space Telescope, both of which catalogue cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.

Until recently, the upper-limit for cosmic structures was 1.2 billion light-years across, but this gamma-ray burst halo is 5 times the size of that limit. That’s a theoretical discrepancy no trade could ignore. What’s more, another structure of gamma-ray bursts was discovered, spanning a distance of 10 billion light-years.

What madness is responsible for this super-geometry? Some macro-cosmology holds that there are areas of our universe which clump together in web-like strands that flow for billions of light-years, creating “holes” in the universe, where little to no matter or energy is present. But presently, this newest structure creates a super-void that puts even the most superlative absences to shame.

“If we are right, this structure contradicts the current models of the universe. It was a huge surprise to find something this big — and we still don’t quite understand how it came to exist at all,” exclaimed Balazs to the Royal Astronomical Society.

Originally reported by the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Enter the appealing void of space with Space Scouts!:

Halo: The Cosmos Evolved For Master Chief

Too Big for Home: A Black Hole Story - http://clapway.com/2015/07/10/too-big-for-home-a-black-hole-story678/

Black hole outgrows its home galaxy

Space news has been pretty eventful lately but some new findings might take the weirdness of recent space events to a new level. The new piece of research that was published today in the Science journal may put a lot of what was known about black holes in a fog.

The story of the black hole being too large for home only 2 billion years after the Big Bang has many in the science community stupefied. Prior to this publication, the science world was led to believe that black holes and galaxies grew at the same time. However, this newly discovered black hole has outgrown the galaxy. Even more startling is the fact that the galaxy continues to grow despite the presence of the black hole’s enormity. An astrophysics professor from the group of researchers that was part of the study has stated that it was only meant to study less exciting things, not a completely never-before-seen phenomenon such as this black hole. The find surprised them and the rest of the science community.

this massive black hole is the largest one ever seen

To date, this black hole is the biggest one scientists have ever found. In comparison to our home star, the Sun, the solar mass of this monster is seven billion times as large. It’s basically the same as the ratio of the entire human population of Earth to you, one person.

What does this mean for us and for space science?

As mentioned previously, this new finding on the black hole earlier in galactic time has scientists scratching their head at the contradictory nature. It is contradictory because it means have to rethink what we know about the universe and the fact that the galaxy the black hole is in continues to grow despite it being there. It’s kind of like a stationary tornado is going on and a whole metropolitan city continuing to be built in the nearby vicinity, despite the threat.

A Jurassic Park quote seems appropriate here, the sentiment that “Life finds a way” being quite applicable to this new discovery.

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Too Big for Home: A Black Hole Story

The beasts of the universe confirmed! - http://clapway.com/2015/07/08/millions-of-hidden-black-holes-may-exist-in-our-universe-164/

The notion that the universe is likely filled with millions of supermassive black holes is quite disconcerting, yet that is exactly the conclusion arrived at by several scientists who recently used NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) satellite and uncovered the existence of five supermassive black holes which they had previously been unable to see.

The Quest to Find Hidden Black Holes

The five supermassive black holes that the scientists uncovered had previously been obscured by enormous clouds of dust and gas. It is commonly understood that supermassive black holes exist at the center of large galaxies, but most of the time, scientists are unable to fully confirm their presence because they are covered by vast quantities of dust and gas that most telescopes are not capable of piercing through.

However, astronomers from Durham University in the United Kingdom who were conducting research on black holes were finally able to pierce through that veil. They achieved this when they aimed the NuSTAR satellite at nine galaxies and discovered that five of them had been hiding supermassive black holes at their centers.

Horrors Spread Across The Universe

Durham University’s George Lansbury, who led the study, stated, “Thanks to NuSTAR, for the first time, we have been able to clearly identify these hidden monsters that are predicted to be there, but have previously been elusive because of their surrounding cocoons of material.”

His team’s findings were presented in Llandudno, Wales, at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting and published in The Astrophysical Journal. In a chilling statement, he added, “Although we have only detected five of these hidden supermassive black holes, when we extrapolate our results across the whole universe then the predicted numbers are huge and in agreement with what we would expect to see.”

The Power of the NuSTAR

NASA’s Nuclear Stereoscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) satellite was launched in 2012 and detects black holes by searching for the highest-energy x-rays. These highest-energy x-rays are much stronger than typical x-rays and can therefore be detected by telescopes equipped to find them.

Daniel Stern, a scientist for NuSTAR at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said of NuSTAR that it “allows us to see how big the hidden monsters are, and is helping us learn why only some black holes appear obscured.”

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What isn’t an adventure in space?

Millions of Hidden Black Holes May Exist In Our Universe

Nap Time Is Over for a Huge Black Hole - http://clapway.com/2015/06/26/nap-time-is-over-for-a-huge-black-hole-time-to-eat765/

Look out, world, a huge black hole is awake

After 26 years of what appeared to be inactivity, the huge black hole in the system of V404 Cygni, 8,000 light years away from Earth, ‘woke up’ recently to show spikes in high-energy light. The new spike in activity was detected by the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL after observing it for around a week when the huge black hole was eating an astral neighbor.

The light from this huge black hole made for an interesting show

With the new activity, the spike in high-energy light caused a fascinating phenomenon that looked very different to our eyes in the night sky. The spectacle would cause the light that reaches our eyes to flicker and vary in brightness and become visible after its ‘inactivity’.

The system featuring the black hole is only across the way

Though the system is located 8,000 light years away, it still is located in the Milky Way in the Swan constellation, or Cygnus. There, it consumes material from a star that the black hole orbits. The consumption has caused several peaks in activity throughout the years, the last spike in 1989.

On June 15, 2015 the change in activity was detected

Flares of gamma rays were detected by the Burst Alert Telescope on NASA’s Swift satellite and MAXI on the International Space Station. Many agree that this behavior from the huge black hole is unique right now in the bursts of light, some brighter than other objects in the night sky. The system that huge black hole resides in has not been as luminous since the last spike in 1989.

Finding from previous years and now show that the spouts of inactivity are due to the material of consumption slowly piling up around the disc of the black hole until the feeding is temporarily interrupted for a short period of time. Scientists are eager to see what this new bout of activity will bring once the spike beings to settle down. Last time, data showed that the neighboring star was significantly smaller than the black hole that orbited it, the hole being more massive than the Sun.

Only time will tell what this huge black hole will bring after its 26 year nap and feeding time.

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Nap Time Is Over for a Huge Black Hole

Magnetar near galaxy black hole surprises with high x-ray count - http://clapway.com/2015/05/16/magnetar-near-galaxy-black-hole-surprises-high-x-ray-count123/

Two years ago, scientists identified a gigantic magnetar near the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Magnetars are collapsed neutron stars with extremely powerful magnetic fields. This particular magnetar happens also to be the closest interstellar entity to the 4-million-solar mass black hole in the middle of the Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of approximately 0.3 light-years (at least 2 trillion miles). In recent discoveries, the magnetar — nicknamed SGR 1745-2900, for research purposes — appears to have not only a higher observed amount of x-rays than previously observed magnetars, but also maintains much higher surface temperatures.

Into the heart of the Milky Way’s darkness — light at the nucleus

It all started when astronomers wanted to observe the circuit of the magnetar around the black hole (called the “sagittarius A-star”) at the center of the Milky Way. Scientists have long concluded that our entire galaxy revolved around this black hole, and until recently did not detect the one galactic body that lives appallingly close to the black hole. Scientists are predicting that it sits at least 2 trillion miles away from the center of the hole. This seems like an indomitable distance, but when the magnitude of the black hole’s 4-million-sun mass is factored in, the position of the magnetar seems exceedingly precarious.

This magnetar, observed using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the ESA’s XMM-Newton, is showing peculiar signs. The studies derived from the space telescopes have indicated specifically that the magnetar’s surface is much hotter than expected of its star type, and that its x-ray emissions appear to be lowering at a rate slower than that of other observed magnetars. Scientists first turned to the phenomenon of “starquakes” to expand on the theory for an explanation. When neutron stars form, a crust develops on its condensed surface. In some cases, this crust will crack and fracture, just like earth’s surface does during an earthquake.

Ultimately, however, the researchers dispelled this possible explanation, since they garnered information showing that the speed at which surface temperatures are cooling, and at which the light of x-rays on the star is fading, didn’t exactly match the projections given by the star-quake mechanism.

Particles in magnetic fields may account for magnetar’s high heat

Perhaps a likelier explanation for the magnetar’s dauntingly high temperatures and high supply of x-rays lies in the charged particles trapped in magnetic fields above the star’s surface. Twisted in bundles, these particles (which are created when neutron stars form) may constantly batter the surface below, administering an increased layer of heat on it.

Magnetar near galaxy black hole surprises with high x-ray count