Humungous bubbles blown from small black hole


Kate McAlpine, reporter

A relatively small black hole has been spotted blowing bubbles with diameters of more than 300-1500 light years.

Robert Soria of the University College London and colleagues pored over images and data from the European Southern Observatory and Chandra X-ray Observatory, zeroing in on an unusually large remnant from a supernova explosion. Its host galaxy appears in the Sculptor constellation of Earth's southern sky, around 12.7 million light years away.

They discovered three hot spots in the x-ray emissions, all in a row, and identified the central one as the core of a black hole a few times larger than the sun. The two spots flanking the core are produced by jets colliding with interstellar gas.

A nearby star feeds the black hole, giving it energy to shoot a flood of particles out each side at near the speed of light. These jets are much more powerful than expected for a black hole of this size, blowing bubbles that expand faster than the speed of sound. The finding suggests that more of the energy spent by a black hole goes into accelerating matter - rather than emitting x-rays - than previously supposed.

Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature09168

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

महाकुंभ 2081 में 45 करोड़ लोग कैसे आ रहे हैं | सीने में जलन और अंधविश्वास क्यों हैं?

पुरानी और उपयोग की गई कारों की बिक्री पर जीएसटी: संदेह और गलतफहमि

अम्बेडकर की चेतावनी के विपरीत: दलित समुदाय का राजनीतिक मुस्लिम समर्थन एक विडंबना

डॉ. अंबेडकर पर विवाद: कांग्रेस की ऐतिहासिक उपेक्षा और राजनीतिक दोहरे मापदंड उजागर

देवभूमि लोक कला उद्गम चैरिटेबल ट्रस्ट और उत्तराखंडी समाज ऐरोली द्वारा जरुरतमंदों को व्हीलचेयर वितरण एवं माता की चौकी का भव्य आयोजन

दूसरे दिन मंच पर जुटे सितारे, अनुकृति गुसाईं व प्रशांत ठाकुर ने देखा कौथिग

महाराष्ट्र: बांग्लादेश में हिंदुओं पर अत्याचार के खिलाफ मुंबई में प्रदर्शन