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Gorilla Black Hole in the Mi
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| Title |
Gorilla Black Hole in the Mist |
| Description |
This false-color image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a distant galaxy (yellow) that houses a quasar, a super-massive black hole circled by a ring, or torus, of gas and dust. Spitzer's infrared eyes cut through the dust to find this hidden object, which appears to be a member of the long-sought population of missing quasars. The green and blue splotches are galaxies that do not hold quasars. Astronomers had predicted that most quasars are blocked from our view by their tori, or by surrounding dust-drenched galaxies, making them difficult to find. Because infrared light can travel through gas and dust, Spitzer was able to detect enough of these objects to show that there is most likely a large population of obscured quasars. In addition to the quasar-bearing galaxy shown here, Spitzer discovered 20 others in a small patch of sky. Astronomers identified the quasars with the help of radio data from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico. While normal galaxies do not produce strong radio waves, many galaxies with quasars appear bright when viewed with radio telescopes. In this image, infrared data from Spitzer is colored both blue (3.6 microns) and green (24 microns), and radio data from the Very Large Array telescope is colored red. The quasar-bearing galaxy stands out in yellow because it emits both infrared and radio light. Of the 21 quasars uncovered by Spitzer, astronomers believe that 10 are hidden by their dusty tori, while the rest are altogether buried in dusty galaxies. The quasar inside the galaxy pictured here is of the type that is obscured by its torus. |
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Anomalous Arms
| Title |
Anomalous Arms |
| Description |
In this composite image of spiral galaxy M106 (NGC 4258), optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey is shown as yellow, radio data from the Very Large Array appears as purple, X-ray data from Chandra is coded blue, and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope appears red. Two anomalous arms, which aren't visible at optical wavelengths, appear as purple and blue emission. |
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Giant Radio Jet Coming from
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| Title |
Giant Radio Jet Coming from Wrong Kind of Galaxy |
| General Information |
What is an American Astronomical Society Meeting release? A major news announcement issued at an American Astronomical Society meeting, the premier astronomy conference. Back to top [ #top ] |
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Host Galaxy Cluster to Large
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| Title |
Host Galaxy Cluster to Largest Known Radio Eruption |
| General Information |
What is a News Nugget? News Nuggets are bulletins from the world of astronomy. This is a new composite image of galaxy cluster MS0735.6+7421, located about 2.6 billion light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis. The three views of the region were taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in Feb. 2006, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in Nov. 2003, and NRAO's Very Large Array in Oct. 2004. The Hubble image shows dozens of galaxies bound together by gravity. In Jan. 2005, astronomers reported that a supermassive black hole, lurking in the central bright galaxy, generated the most powerful outburst seen in the universe. The VLA radio image shows jets of high energy particles (in red) streaming from the black hole. These jets pushed the X-ray emitting hot gas (shown in blue in the Chandra image) aside to create two giant cavities in the gas. The cavities are evidence for the massive eruption. The X-ray and radio images show the enormous appetite of large black holes and the profound impact they have on their surroundings. |
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Host Galaxy Cluster to Large
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| Title |
Host Galaxy Cluster to Largest Known Radio Eruption |
| General Information |
What is a News Nugget? News Nuggets are bulletins from the world of astronomy. This is a new composite image of galaxy cluster MS0735.6+7421, located about 2.6 billion light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis. The three views of the region were taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in Feb. 2006, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in Nov. 2003, and NRAO's Very Large Array in Oct. 2004. The Hubble image shows dozens of galaxies bound together by gravity. In Jan. 2005, astronomers reported that a supermassive black hole, lurking in the central bright galaxy, generated the most powerful outburst seen in the universe. The VLA radio image shows jets of high energy particles (in red) streaming from the black hole. These jets pushed the X-ray emitting hot gas (shown in blue in the Chandra image) aside to create two giant cavities in the gas. The cavities are evidence for the massive eruption. The X-ray and radio images show the enormous appetite of large black holes and the profound impact they have on their surroundings. |
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Host Galaxy Cluster to Large
…
| Title |
Host Galaxy Cluster to Largest Known Radio Eruption |
| General Information |
What is a News Nugget? News Nuggets are bulletins from the world of astronomy. This is a new composite image of galaxy cluster MS0735.6+7421, located about 2.6 billion light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis. The three views of the region were taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in Feb. 2006, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in Nov. 2003, and NRAO's Very Large Array in Oct. 2004. The Hubble image shows dozens of galaxies bound together by gravity. In Jan. 2005, astronomers reported that a supermassive black hole, lurking in the central bright galaxy, generated the most powerful outburst seen in the universe. The VLA radio image shows jets of high energy particles (in red) streaming from the black hole. These jets pushed the X-ray emitting hot gas (shown in blue in the Chandra image) aside to create two giant cavities in the gas. The cavities are evidence for the massive eruption. The X-ray and radio images show the enormous appetite of large black holes and the profound impact they have on their surroundings. |
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Host Galaxy Cluster to Large
…
| Title |
Host Galaxy Cluster to Largest Known Radio Eruption |
| General Information |
What is a News Nugget? News Nuggets are bulletins from the world of astronomy. This is a new composite image of galaxy cluster MS0735.6+7421, located about 2.6 billion light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis. The three views of the region were taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in Feb. 2006, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in Nov. 2003, and NRAO's Very Large Array in Oct. 2004. The Hubble image shows dozens of galaxies bound together by gravity. In Jan. 2005, astronomers reported that a supermassive black hole, lurking in the central bright galaxy, generated the most powerful outburst seen in the universe. The VLA radio image shows jets of high energy particles (in red) streaming from the black hole. These jets pushed the X-ray emitting hot gas (shown in blue in the Chandra image) aside to create two giant cavities in the gas. The cavities are evidence for the massive eruption. The X-ray and radio images show the enormous appetite of large black holes and the profound impact they have on their surroundings. |
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3C175: Quasar Cannon
| Title |
3C175: Quasar Cannon |
| Explanation |
3C175 is not only a quasar, it is a galaxy-fueled particle cannon. Visible as the central dot is quasar [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/35/quasar.html ] 3C175, the active center of a galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961125.html ] so distant [ http://isaac.exploratorium.edu/~pauld/activities/astronomy/cityuniversesize.html ] that the light we see from it was emitted when the Earth [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html ] was just forming [ http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/niel/scales/geohist1.ascii ]. The above image [ http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~abridle/3c175.htm ] was recorded in radio waves [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html ] by an array of house-sized telescopes called the Very Large Array [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000530.html ] (VLA). Shooting out from 3C175 is a thin jet [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000706.html ] of protons [ http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/proton.html ] and electrons [ http://www.aip.org/history/electron/ ] traveling near the speed of light [ http://www.what-is-the-speed-of-light.com/ ] that is over one million light-years [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/cosmic_distance.html ] long. The jet [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000619.html ] acts like a particle cannon [ http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_wendwar.html ] and bores through gas cloud in its path. How this jet [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010816.html ] forms and why it is so narrow remain topics of current [ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/bib_query?1994AJ....108..766B ] research [ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1999ApJ...511...84H ]. |
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Jets from Radio Galaxy 3C296
| Title |
Jets from Radio Galaxy 3C296 |
| Explanation |
Jets of streaming plasma [ http://www.plasmas.org/basics.htm ] expelled by the central black hole [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/rjn_bht.html ] of a massive elliptical galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/elliptical_galaxies.html ] likely light up this composite image of 3C296 [ http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/atlas/object/3C296.html ]. The jets emanating from NGC 5532 [ http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/HIGHLIGHT/2001/highlight0103_e.html ] and are nearly a million light years [ http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question19.html ] long. Exactly how the central black hole [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010508.html ] expels the infalling matter is still unknown. After clearing the galaxy, however, the jets [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991129.html ] inflate large radio bubbles that could glow for millions of years. If excited by a passing front, radio bubbles [ http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~abridle/images.htm ] can even light up again after a billion years. Visible light is depicted in the above image [ http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~abridle/3c296digss.htm ] in blue, while radio waves [ http://imagers.gsfc.nasa.gov/ems/radio.html ] are shown in red. The radio map was created with the Very Large Array [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000530.html ] of radio telescopes [ http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/light/radio.html ]. |
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Twin Proto-Planetary Disks
| Title |
Twin Proto-Planetary Disks |
| Explanation |
Sun-like stars [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/sun_parts.html ] are forming - and probably planets too [ http://wwwusr.obspm.fr/departement/darc/planets/encycl.html ] - hidden inside [ http://donald.phast.umass.edu/theses/dianne/chap1/node5.html ] Lynds 1551, an interstellar cloud of molecular gas and dust in the constellation [ http://www.mtwilson.edu/Education/ConQuiz/ ] Taurus. Using new receivers, coordinated radio telescopes at the Very Large Array [ http://www.nrao.edu/vla/html/VLAhome.shtml ] near Socorro, New Mexico, USA, can now sharply image the dusty proto-planetary disks surrounding these young stars at radio wavelengths. Just announced, this exciting example [ http://www.nrao.edu/pr/protodisks.html ] shows a false-color radio [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980917.html ] picture of twin disks in a double star system [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970219.html ]! A yellow bar indicates the scale in astronomical units (AUs) where one AU is the average distance between the Earth and Sun. The stars (unseen near the center of each disk) are about 45 AUs apart, comparable to the radius of the orbit of Pluto [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/plutofact.html ]. Similar proto-planetary disks [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980423.html ] have been seen around single stars, but these twin disks are much smaller, each limited in size by the gravity of the nearby companion star [ http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/courses/astro201/kepler_binary.htm ]. In fact, if large planets form orbiting near the edges of these disks they may be ejected from the binary system [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980529.html ]. |
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