Science Current Events | Science News | Brightsurf.com
 
Email a Friend Send to a friend
Printer Friendly Print Scientists Probe Black Hole's Inner Sanctum

Scientists Probe Black Hole's Inner Sanctum

January 10, 2006

How does matter spiral its way to the center of a galaxy and into the mouth of a supermassive black hole? A new study provides the best glimpse yet at the death spiral of material as it descends into the core of a galaxy hosting a large black hole. The study predicts that, barring obstructions, the galactic debris will take about 200,000 years to make a one-way trip through the inner regions of the galaxy and into oblivion.

An international team of scientists led by Kambiz Fathi at Rochester Institute of Technology, together with astronomers in Brazil, Italy, and Chile, measured the internal motions of gas surrounding the nucleus of the active galaxy NGC1097. Using sophisticated spectroscopic techniques with the Gemini South Telescope in Chile, the team measured the spiral motions of gas streaming inside the nuclear ring. Using sophisticated spectroscopic techniques with the Gemini South Telescope in Chile, the team measured the motion of matter streaming from the galaxy's spiral arms to the heart of the galaxy. The observations zoomed in 10 times closer to the supermassive black hole than ever before, to see clouds of material within 10 light-years of the galactic core. Previous observations of this type of environment have detected gas clouds located between 100 and 1,000 light-years from the galaxy's nucleus.




Fathi presented the team's results at the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society Jan. 9 in Washington, D.C.

"It is the first time anyone has been able to follow gas this close to the supermassive black hole in the center of another galaxy," says Fathi, a postdoctoral scholar at RIT. "The work of our team confirms the main theories that have never been observationally confirmed at this level. We have been able to show that it is possible to measure these velocities down to these scales."

Modeling the galaxy's spectra revealed the dynamic shifts in the gas and showed the spiral arms pulling gas from about a thousand light-years out from the center to the nucleus at 52 kilometers (31 miles) per second. Previous imaging by the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope has shown structure inside the central ring of NGC1097. The Gemini data complement this with a velocity map of the gas inside the ring.

"When we extrapolate our last data points, about 30 light-years from the black hole, this is where we find that it would take about 200,000 years for the gas to travel the last leg of its one-way journey to the supermassive black hole," says Fathi.

The team measured the streaming motions toward the black hole by using two-dimensional spectroscopy to capture spectral data at several thousand points surrounding the nucleus of the galaxy.

"The resolution of this data is unprecedented when you look at how we were able to isolate so many different points around the nucleus of this galaxy and acquire a spectrum for each point at once," says team member Thaisa Storchi Bergmann of Instituto de Fisica in Brazil. "This paints an incredibly detailed picture of the region around the black hole and gives us a new glimpse at something we could only imagine before."

The technology that allows these types of observations is called integral field spectroscopy. It takes light from many different parts of the telescope's field simultaneously and splits the light from each region into a rainbow or spectrum of light. "This allows astronomers to do in 30 minutes what would have taken four nights a decade ago," says Fathi.

NGC1097 is located about 47 million light-years away in the southern constellation Fornax.

This work used data from the Gemini Observatory's Multi-Object Spectrograph integral field unit and the Hubble Space Telescope's high resolution Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Project collaborators include Thaisa Storchi-Bergmann, UFRGS, Brazil; David Axon and Andrew Robinson, RIT, USA; Alessandro Capetti, INAF-Turin, Italy, Alessandro Marconi, INAF-Florence, Italy; Rogemar Riffel, UFRGS, Brazil, and Claudia Winge, Gemini Observatory, Chile.

The results of this study will appear in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Rochester Institute of Technology



Related Black Hole Current Events and Black Hole News Articles Black Hole Current Events and Black Hole News RSS Black Hole Current Events and Black Hole News RSS
Scientists discover 'catastrophic event' behind the halt of star birth in early galaxy formation
Scientists have found evidence of a catastrophic event they believe was responsible for halting the birth of stars in a galaxy in the early Universe.

NASA's Fermi probes 'dragons' of the gamma-ray sky
One of the pleasures of perusing ancient maps is locating regions so poorly explored that mapmakers warned of dragons and sea monsters.

Runaway anti-matter production makes for a spectacular stellar explosion
University of Notre Dame astronomer Peter Garnavich and a team of collaborators have discovered a distant star that exploded when its center became so hot that matter and anti-matter particle pairs were created.

Close-up Photos of Dying Star Show Our Sun's Fate
About 550 light-years from Earth, a star like our Sun is writhing in its death throes. Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that it would swallow every planet out to Mars in our solar system.

Theorists propose a new way to shine -- and a new kind of star
Dying, for stars, has just gotten more complicated. For some stellar objects, the final phase before or instead of collapsing into a black hole may be what a group of physicists is calling an electroweak star.

Suzaku Catches Retreat of a Black Hole's Disk
Studies of one of the galaxy's most active black-hole binaries reveal a dramatic change that will help scientists better understand how these systems expel fast-moving particle jets.

Scientists observe super-massive black holes using Keck Observatory in Hawaii
An international team of scientists has observed four super-massive black holes at the center of galaxies, which may provide new information on how these central black hole systems operate.

Fermi Sees Brightest-Ever Blazar Flare
A galaxy located billions of light-years away is commanding the attention of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and astronomers around the globe.

A Superbright Supernova That's the First of Its Kind
An extraordinarily bright, extraordinarily long-lasting supernova named SN 2007bi, snagged in a search by a robotic telescope, turns out to be the first example of the kind of stars that first populated the Universe.

Black Hole Caught Zapping Galaxy into Existence?
Which come first, the supermassive black holes that frantically devour matter or the enormous galaxies where they reside? A brand new scenario has emerged from a recent set of outstanding observations of a black hole without a home: black holes may be "building" their own host galaxy.
More Black Hole Current Events and Black Hole News Articles
The Black Hole

The Black Hole
Starring: Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux
Directed By: Gary Nelson
Also With: Frank V. Phillips (Cinematographer), G. Gregg McLaughlin (Editor), Ron Miller (Producer), Bob Barbash (Writer), Gerry Day (Writer), Jeb Rosebrook (Writer), Richard H. Landau (Writer)

THE CREW OF THE SPACESHIP PALAMINO STUMBLES ACROSS THE LOST SHIP USS CYGNUS HOVERING ON THE EDGE OF AN IMMENSE BLACK HOLE. ONCE ABOARD THEY FIND THE SHIP IS MANNED BY ROBOTS ITS ONLY HUMAN INHABITANT ONE DR HANS REINHARDT AN EMINENT SCIENTIST MISSING FOR THE PAST TWENTY YEARS.

Black Hole

Black Hole
by Charles Burns (Author)

Winner of the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz Awards

The setting: suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways — from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) — but once you’ve got it, that’s it. There’s no turning back.

As we inhabit the heads of several key characters — some kids who have it, some who don’t, some who are about to get it — what unfolds isn’t the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it , or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself — the savagery,...

The Black Hole

The Black Hole
Starring: Kristy Swanson; Judd Nelson; David Selby; Heather Dawn; Robert Giardina; Jennifer Lyn Quackenbush; Christa Campbell; Julia Sinks; Peter Mayer; James Anthony; Kevin Beyer; Dan Buran; Tim Snay; Adrian Rice; Greg Carr; Chris Nolte; Rick Tamblyn; Ermal Williamson; Rod Bernsen; Susan Wood
Directed By: Tibor Takács

A high-voltage sci-fi thriller loaded with explosive battles and gripping special effects. DVD Features include: Exploring The Black Hole: A Behind the Scenes Featurette with the Cast and Crew.

Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
by Neil deGrasse Tyson (Author)

“One of today’s best popularizers of science.”—Kirkus Reviews Loyal readers of the monthly “Universe” essays in Natural History magazine have long recognized Neil deGrasse Tyson’s talent for guiding them through the mysteries of the cosmos with stunning clarity and childlike enthusiasm. Here Tyson compiles his favorite essays across a myriad of cosmic topics. The title essay introduces readers to the physics of black holes by explaining just what would happen to your body if you fell into one, while “Hollywood Nights” assails Hollywood’s feeble efforts to get its night skies right. Tyson is the world’s ...

National Geographic: Monster Black Holes

National Geographic: Monster Black Holes
Starring: Michael Carroll

Travel to the edge of space and beyond to discover natures ultimate abyss black holes. Explore where they are found, how they begin, and how it may be possible to harness and use the power they produce. In Monster Black Holes, scientists steadily piece together the complex dynamics of a black holes birth and are also examine the growth of a select few black holes to super massive proportions that dominate the centers of galaxies. As a monster black hole swallows everything in its path, it generates energy that shapes the universe around it in powerful ways. Journey into the heart of a black hole and explore what happens to matter when it falls into a black hole, and whether the Milky Way galaxy will one day come to an end when the black hole at the galaxys center explodes.

The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics

The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics
by Leonard Susskind (Author)

At the beginning of the 21st century, physics is being driven to very unfamiliar territory--the domain of the incredibly small and the incredibly heavy. The new world is a world in which both quantum mechanics and gravity are equally important. But mysteries remain. One of the biggest involved black holes. Famed physicist Stephen Hawking claimed that anything sucked in a black hole was lost forever. For three decades, Leonard Susskind and Hawking clashed over the answer to this problem. Finally, in 2004, Hawking conceded.

THE BLACK HOLE WAR will explain the mind-blowing science that finally won out, and the emergence of a new paradigm that argues the world--this catalog, your home, your breakfast, you--is actually a hologram projected from the edges of...

The Black Hole

The Black Hole
Starring: Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux
Directed By: Gary Nelson
Also With: Frank V. Phillips (Cinematographer), G. Gregg McLaughlin (Editor), Ron Miller (Producer), Bob Barbash (Writer), Gerry Day (Writer), Jeb Rosebrook (Writer), Richard H. Landau (Writer)

Disney's foray into big-budget science fiction, close on the heels of Star Wars, had some of the most impressive special effects to grace theater screens in the 1970s. Graced by handsome production design--most notably a glass and latticework interstellar craft that looks like a battleship crossed with a modern skyscraper--The Black Hole is in many ways the most beautiful science fiction film of its era. Unfortunately, the graceful and gorgeous picture is jarred by dialogue that wouldn't pass muster in a comic book and a silly conclusion that plays like a murky, dime-store knockoff of 2001. Too bad, because the visual realization of the film is a veritable haunted house of futuristic phenomena, from the cloaked zombie-like drones shuffling through corridors to the devilish, crimson...

Black Holes: And Other Bizarre Space Objects (Science Frontiers)

Black Holes: And Other Bizarre Space Objects (Science Frontiers)
by David Jefferis (Author)



The Black Hole

The Black Hole
Starring: Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux
Directed By: Gary Nelson
Also With: Frank V. Phillips (Cinematographer), G. Gregg McLaughlin (Editor), Ron Miller (Producer), Bob Barbash (Writer), Gerry Day (Writer), Jeb Rosebrook (Writer), Richard H. Landau (Writer)

Disney's foray into big-budget science fiction, close on the heels of Star Wars, had some of the most impressive special effects to grace theater screens in the 1970s. Graced by handsome production design--most notably a glass and latticework interstellar craft that looks like a battleship crossed with a modern skyscraper--The Black Hole is in many ways the most beautiful science fiction film of its era. Unfortunately, the graceful and gorgeous picture is jarred by dialogue that wouldn't pass muster in a comic book and a silly conclusion that plays like a murky, dime-store knockoff of 2001. Too bad, because the visual realization of the film is a veritable haunted house of futuristic phenomena, from the cloaked zombie-like drones shuffling through corridors to the devilish, crimson...

Mysterious Universe: Supernovae, Dark Energy, and Black Holes (Scientists in the Field Series)

Mysterious Universe: Supernovae, Dark Energy, and Black Holes (Scientists in the Field Series)
by Ellen Jackson (Author), Nic Bishop (Photographer)

The universe is rapidly expanding. Of that much scientists are certain. But how fast? And with what implications regarding the fate of the universe?
Ellen Jackson and Nic Bishop follow Dr. Alex Fillippenko and his High-Z Supernova Search Team to Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii, where they will study space phenomena and look for supernovae, dying stars that explode with the power of billions of hydrogen bombs. Dr. Fillippenko looks for black holes--areas in space with such a strong gravitational pull that no matter or energy can escape from them--with his robotic telescope. And they study the effects of dark energy, the mysterious force that scientists believe is pushing the universe apart, causing its constant and accelerating expansion.

© 2010 BrightSurf.com