Stellary Starry Universe

 

The extreme conditions found around black holes and other very dense objects can be recreated in the laboratory with powerful lasers, physicists say.

BRISBANE: The extreme conditions found around black holes and other very dense objects can be recreated in the laboratory with powerful lasers, physicists say.

The technique may allow them to validate the computer models they use to interpret black hole data collected by space-based telescopes, such as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, according to a study published this week in Nature Physics. [...]

Source: Cosmos Online – click here for full article

 

 

Spectrum of quasar shows evidence of orbiting binary black hole system. Researchers finally have strong evidence for the existence of a binary black hole system, a long-theorized result of galactic mergers that features two black holes orbiting around each other at the center of large galaxy.

The black holes are expected to merge in what astronomers figure would be one of the most energetic events in the universe.

The new evidence comes from a study of the light signatures of 17,500 quasars — extremely bright features at the center of galaxies, thought to be powered by black holes — taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and detailed in the March 5 issue of the journal Nature. [...]

Source: Space.com – click here for full article

 

Astronomers used Playstation 3 consoles to study black hole vibrations.

When black holes are perturbed, they vibrate somewhat like a ringing bell. Now astronomers have narrowed down the rotational speed at which that vibration should stop.

As is typical, they did it by running a simulation. But instead of a supercomputer, they used several Sony Playstation 3 gaming consoles wired together.

The so-called PS3 Gravity Grid, a network of 16 Playstation 3 consoles grouped together in a cluster capable of running simulations that rival a dedicated supercomputer at a much lower cost.

“You can get a supercomputer’s capability with relatively little money,” said Lior Burko of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, who led the black hole study, in an interview.

Source: Space.com – click here for full article

 

VLT Adaptive Optics shows stellar nurseries, black hole at center of nearby galaxy.

A sharp-eyed instrument on the Very Large Telescope has given astronomers a peek at the heart of a nearby galaxy, revealing a host of young, massive and dusty stellar nurseries and a possible twin of our own Milky Way’s supermassive black hole.

The galaxy, dubbed NGC 253, is one of the brightest and dustiest spiral galaxies in the sky. It is also known as the Sculptor Galaxy, because it is located in the Sculptor constellation.

The Sculptor Galaxy is a starbust galaxy, so-called because of very intense star formation there.

Source: Space.com – click here for full article

 

 

BRISBANE: Supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies may form before the galaxies themselves, a new study has found.

The central bulge of a galaxy usually has a thousand times more mass than the black hole at its centre, but that this isn’t the case in very young galaxies, an international team reported yesterday to a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California.

Efficient growth

Instead, the black holes are relatively much larger in baby galaxies, hinting that the holes came first. That changes the way astronomers will think about the growth and evolution of galaxies, according to team member Dominik Riechers.

“Our findings show that… a simple regulating process that allows simultaneous growth cannot be the only reason for the relationship [between black holes and bulges],” said Riechers, an astronomer at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, USA.

“Even if we look at the most extreme, rapid star-forming events in the universe, those are less [fast and] efficient than the growth of massive black holes,” he said.

To make the discovery, Reicher’s team studied conditions during the first billion years of the universe using the Very Large Array radio observatory in New Mexico, and the Interferometer at Plateau de Bure in France.

Source: Cosmos Online – click here for full article