Astronomy
Researchers have discovered a massive black hole at the centre of a distant galaxy which has the mass of 140 million Suns. The black hole is in the heart of galaxy NGC 1097, which is 47 million light-years away from Earth.
According to space.com, the distance is too far for scientists to determine the mass of the black hole by the movement of the stars around it. But by tracking the movements of two types of molecular gases around the galaxy's centre, researchers using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array in Chile [ALMA] were able to figure out the black hole's gravitational pull.
Their results show that the black hole is significantly larger than the one at the centre of the Milky Way [140 million Suns in mass versus the Milky Way's 4 million or so].
The ALMA telescopes tracked the radiation emitted from the two gases, hydrogen cyanide and formyl cation, as they swirled around the galaxy. The gases don't interact strongly with environmental conditions within the galaxy, such as ionised gas flowing inward or outward. This means the gases paint an accurate picture of the effects of gravity's pull alone.
With just two hours of observational data, the researchers learned enough about the distribution and velocities of those gases to fit them to a model and calculate the pull of the galaxy's core black hole.
The mass of a central black hole affects the physical properties of its host galaxy, and recent work has shown that those effects are different for different types of galaxies, said study lead author, Kyoko Onishi, a doctoral student at the Graduate University for advanced studies in Japan. To understand those effects, Onishi said it's important to measure the mass of these central black holes in various galaxy types.
original source:- space.com
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Astronomy
Black hole with mass of 140 Million Suns discovered
According to space.com, the distance is too far for scientists to determine the mass of the black hole by the movement of the stars around it. But by tracking the movements of two types of molecular gases around the galaxy's centre, researchers using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array in Chile [ALMA] were able to figure out the black hole's gravitational pull.
Their results show that the black hole is significantly larger than the one at the centre of the Milky Way [140 million Suns in mass versus the Milky Way's 4 million or so].
The ALMA telescopes tracked the radiation emitted from the two gases, hydrogen cyanide and formyl cation, as they swirled around the galaxy. The gases don't interact strongly with environmental conditions within the galaxy, such as ionised gas flowing inward or outward. This means the gases paint an accurate picture of the effects of gravity's pull alone.
With just two hours of observational data, the researchers learned enough about the distribution and velocities of those gases to fit them to a model and calculate the pull of the galaxy's core black hole.
The mass of a central black hole affects the physical properties of its host galaxy, and recent work has shown that those effects are different for different types of galaxies, said study lead author, Kyoko Onishi, a doctoral student at the Graduate University for advanced studies in Japan. To understand those effects, Onishi said it's important to measure the mass of these central black holes in various galaxy types.
original source:- space.com
- On The Edge Of A Hungry Black Hole
Gas and dust equal to the mass of two Earths are being gobbled up every hour by a hungry black hole in a distant galaxy, according to a space telescope probing the Universe in X-rays that has peered closer to a black hole than ever before. The European...
- Study Reveals The Link Between Black Holes And Galaxy Merger
In a recent survey, scientists have found a clear link between the presence of super-massive black holes that power high-speed radio-signal emitting jets and the merger history of their host galaxies. It was also discovered that almost all of the...
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NASA's WISE [Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer] telescope has discovered a remote galaxy that shines with the light of more than 300 trillion suns, making it the most luminous galaxy ever found. The galaxy, known as WISE J224607.57-052635.0...
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According to NASA, astronomers, using Chandra X-ray observatory had almost found a youngest possible Black hole known to exist in our cosmic background, and they even said that it appears to be our nearest possible. The 30-year-old object provides a...
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