It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
(visit the link for the full news article)
NASA's Swift satellite recently detected a rising tide of high-energy X-rays from a source toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The outburst, produced by a rare X-ray nova, announced the presence of a previously unknown stellar-mass black hole.
"Bright X-ray novae are so rare that they're essentially once-a-mission events and this is the first one Swift has seen," said Neil Gehrels, the mission's principal investigator, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This is really something we've been waiting for."
An X-ray nova is a short-lived X-ray source that
An X-ray outburst caught by NASA's Swift on Sept. 16, 2012, resulted from a flood of gas plunging toward a previously unknown black hole. Gas flowing from a sun-like star collects into a disk around the black hole. Normally, this gas would steadily spiral inward. But in this system, named Swift J1745-26, the gas collects for decades before suddenly surging inward. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
How many black holes are there?
To use a technical term, gobs. Astronomers have discovered several dozen likely "supermassive" black holes in the cores of fairly nearby galaxies, plus many more in the distant objects known as quasars. They have discovered perhaps a dozen or two likely stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way galaxy (plus one in a satellite galaxy), and a few possible intermediate-mass black holes in the Milky Way and other galaxies. Yet these don't even qualify as the tip of the iceberg - more like a tiny ice chip. Supermassive black holes may inhabit the cores of all galaxies with central bulges of stars, and thousands of stellar-mass black holes may inhabit the Milky Way, with thousands more in each of billions of other galaxies. One of the goals of black-hole researchers is to find as many as possible so they can estimate how common these objects are.
The term "stellar mass" apparently means it's the mass of a single star, and not some kind of supermassive black hole with a mass of many stars.
Originally posted by badfish420
NASA's Swift Satellite Discovers a New Black Hole in our Galaxy
www.nasa.gov
The outburst, produced by a rare X-ray nova, announced the presence of a previously unknown stellar-mass black hole.
...Naselsky said:
'We have observed a very unique emission of radio radiation from the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
'By using different methods to separate the signal for very broad range of wavelengths, we have been able to determine the spectrum of the radiation.
'The radiation originates from synchrotron emission - electrons and positrons circulating at high energies around the lines of the Magnetic Field in the centre of the galaxy, and there are quite strong indications that it could come from dark matter.'
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... 25sHQYdvp
*Planck satellite picks up beams of radiation from centre of Milky Way which could prove existence of 'dark matter'
*Researchers at Niels Bohr Institute say radiation is either proof - or something currently unknown to physics
By Eddie Wrenn
PUBLISHED: 04:03 EST, 5 September 2012 | UPDATED: 04:03 EST, 5 September 2012
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... 25sHhaoyz
Originally posted by SkepticEzzy
I hope the black hole leads to a better place! i hope it leads to justin bieber wonderland!
Originally posted by Ben81
About time !
been there the whole time at the center of our galaxy
all constellations are spiraling around it (giant universal clock)
the secrets of who we are is within the stars !
Originally posted by stumason
Originally posted by Ben81
About time !
been there the whole time at the center of our galaxy
all constellations are spiraling around it (giant universal clock)
the secrets of who we are is within the stars !
This is a different BH. One of stellar mass, not the big sucker in the Galactic centre..
reply to post by PatrickGarrow17
BH don't go round sucking everything in. A stellar mass BH, for example, will have no more of a gravitational effect on it's surroundings than the Star it was formed of, as it consists of the same mass. For example, if our Sun turned into a BH right now, the only difference we'd see would be the lack of sunlight. We'd still orbit exactly the same round and round, ad infinitum...
Originally posted by badfish420
An X-ray outburst caught by NASA's Swift on Sept. 16, 2012, resulted from a flood of gas plunging toward a previously unknown black hole. Gas flowing from a sun-like star collects into a disk around the black hole. Normally, this gas would steadily spiral inward. But in this system, named Swift J1745-26, the gas collects for decades before suddenly surging inward. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
This is awesome! A black hole just 20,000 - 30,000 light years away!
Score one for NASA!
www.nasa.gov
(visit the link for the full news article)