SUPER MASSIVE BLACK HOLE LEAVES SCIENTISTS FEELING RED

Pasadena, CA - Black holes have long been a source of mystery for both scientists and layman alike. The massive gravity wells were first postulated in 1783, just as science was truly starting to understand the nature of the universe. Since then great minds such as Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer have tackled the mystery of
the Black Hole. When the term was first coined in a 1967 speech by Physicist John Wheeler, the Cosmological body suddenly thrust its way into the mainstream and became the most popular of space-borne gravity wells.

Since that rise in popularity the black hole industry has exploded. With movies and books helping to drive the popularity of the phenomenon, funding dedicated towards research has increased exponentially. Though much still remains a mystery about the cause and effects of black holes, the study has shown that their occurrence is quite common. Now though with the revelation that a nearby black hole is two to three times larger than previously thought, scientists are left reeling and a little bit red faced as questions about the reliability of their field starts to come into question.

“We did not expect it at all. This black hole is approximately 6.4 billion times the mass of the Sun and we now suspect that other black holes in neighbouring galaxies may be much larger than we previously had though,” said Karl Gebhardt of the University of Texas. “This new model gives us a much clearer picture of the size of black holes and allows us to more carefully study how they come into being and what purpose they serve. This may also help us understand the mystery behind quasars and how they function within the ecosystem of the Universe.”

The recently expanded black hole is located in the M87 galaxy, approximately 50 million light years away. Astronomers also believe that our galaxy, The Milky Way, may also have a super massive black hole at the centre of it but the veracity of that speculation is now being called into question.

“It’s a very difficult task to completely understand everything that exists in the universe. Our telescopes and satellites can only see so far, our computer models can only work on the data that we have. Cosmology after all is a very young science and it is only in the last twenty to thirty years that we have had the technology to really conduct thorough study,” said Scrape TV Science analyst Dr. Howard Poe. “That said though, science has a lot to prove. After all it postulates that God did not create the Heavens and the Earth which is a long and firmly held belief by a great many people, people who pay the taxes that pay for these kinds of studies. The obvious question for most of them is if they can underestimate the size of a black hole by this much then what else have they gotten wrong. It brings the science down to the level of speculation which opens it up for criticism.”

Modern religion, particularly the Abrahamic traditions, have eschewed any kind of rationale or logic behind the existence of the Universe and attributed it to the whims of an omniscient being. Science traditionally postulates theories and then pursues evidence to either prove or disprove those hypotheses. The two have often been in opposition.

“The biggest concern is that these black holes may be bigger still, or worse they are expanding at an incredible rate and will soon consume the known universe. If they are expanding and we have one at the centre of our universe how long will it be before we are destroyed by its gravity well? These are questions worth asking,” continued Poe. “Of course if we are doomed to destruction in a black hole in the fairly near future then this debate might well be pointless. It’s doesn’t really matter whose right and whose wrong if the planet has been utterly destroyed. This could of course be the result of a still fledgling science but of course because of that if we are on the path to destruction we may not know until it’s too late.”

Journey to the Center of the Milky Way: A Supermassive Black Hole

Take a journey to the center of our Milky Way galaxy. See what the Milky Way looks like from Earth; learn how we observe the center of our galaxy; and keep zooming in until we can learn things about the supermassive black hole that resides at the Galactic Center.

Artist's rendition of a black hole.

Black holes represent some of the most extreme environments in the Universe; places where even light can not escape! In this show, you'll learn all about what makes a black hole tick, where they come from, and why a black hole has no hair!

Black hole

Supermassive black holes found at the centers of distant galaxies undergo huge growth spurts as a result of galactic collisions, according to a new study by astronomers at Yale University and the University of Hawaii.

Their findings appear in the March 25 edition of Science Express.

As massive, gas-rich galaxies in the distant universe collide, the central black hole feeds on gas that is funneled to the center of the merger. “As a result of the violent, messy collision, the black hole also remains obscured behind a ‘veil’ of dust for between 10 million and 100 million years,” said Priyamvada Natarajan, professor of astronomy at Yale and one of the paper’s authors. After that time the dust is blown away to reveal a brightly shining quasar — the central region of a galaxy with an extremely energetic, supermassive black hole at its center — that lasts for another 100 million years, the team found.

Until now, astronomers were unsure how long the quasars spent behind the dust cloud. While unobscured quasars, which are the brightest optical objects in the early universe, were discovered in the late 1950s, examples of quasars obscured by dust were more difficult to detect, and were only discovered in the late 1990s. “For many years, astronomers believed that these sources were very rare. Now we are seeing them everywhere,” said Ezequiel Treister of the University of Hawaii, lead author of the study.

The team used observations from the Hubble, Chandra and Spitzer space telescopes to identify a large number of obscured, dust-enshrouded quasars up to 11 billion light years away, when the universe was only about one-fifth its current age. “We detected a signature of very hot dust at infrared and X-ray wavelengths to find these obscured sources,” Treister said.

“Once they had been identified, we used Hubble’s new Wide Field Camera 3 — which astronauts installed last year during the final servicing mission — to confirm that these distant quasars were actually the result of mergers,” said Kevin Schawinski, another Yale co-author.

The researchers discovered that the number of obscured quasars relative to the unobscured ones was significantly larger in the early universe than it is now, giving them a new understanding of how these objects formed and evolved over time. “We knew from theoretical models that mergers of massive, gas-rich galaxies were more frequent in the past,” said Natarajan, the theorist of the team. “Now we’ve found that these mergers are responsible for producing both the nearby obscured quasar population and their distant cousins.”

The astronomers coupled the telescope observations with estimated galaxy merger rates and theoretical models to come up with the amount of time it takes for the black hole to blow away the surrounding dust and gas and reveal the naked, bright quasar. “We found that these growing black holes spend about half their lives veiled in dust, and half their lives unveiled,” Natarajan said. “That means that, until now, we have likely been missing half of the actively growing black holes in the early universe.”

Major galaxy mergers are important triggers for star formation as well as modifying galaxy shape and structure. “This work confirms that mergers are also critical for the growth and evolution of central giant black holes, which continue to feed and gain weight during both the hidden phase and when they shine freely,” Natarajan said.

Other authors of the paper include C. Megan Urry of Yale University, David B. Sanders of the University of Hawaii and Jeyhan Kartaltepe of the University of Hawaii and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

Geminids Meteor shower on Friday 12th December 2008

The Geminids are Amazing!

If you see some bright lights in the sky this week, don’t set off for Bethlehem. It’s just the remnants of asteroid 3200 Phaethon. Collectively this debris is known as The Geminids Meteor shower and consists of low bright meteors. This is “the most reliable and often the most spectacular meteor shower of the year”, characterised by a multi-coloured display.

The radiant is in the region of the constellation Gemini so look in that direction for all the action.

So for those of you with not a lot to do this Friday, get on down to the The Observatory Science Centre, Herstmonceux, Hailsham, East Sussex, BN27 1RN (Tel: 01323 832731 Fax 01323 832741) for 6.30pm when they will be training their substantial telescope on the bright lights around Gemini.

Don Dixon Space Art