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XMM-Newton X-ray Image of Ab
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| Name |
XMM-Newton X-ray Image of Abell 3627 |
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Abell 3627 Animations
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Abell 3627 Animations |
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Process Astronomical Images
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| Title |
Process Astronomical Images on Your Home Computer Just Like the Experts |
| General Information |
What is a News Nugget? News Nuggets are bulletins from the world of astronomy. Anyone with a desktop computer running Adobe® Photoshop® or Adobe Photoshop Elements software can try their hand at crafting astronomical images as beautiful as Hubble Space Telescope's. A free software plug-in being released today for Photoshop makes the treasure of archival astronomical images and spectra from Hubble Space Telescope, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-Ray Observatory and many other famous telescopes accessible to home astronomy enthusiasts. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/53/text/ ] |
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Molecular Torus Surrounds Bl
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Molecular Torus Surrounds Black Hole |
| Explanation |
Why do some black hole surroundings appear brighter than others? In the centers of active galaxies [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/active_galaxies.html ], supermassive black holes [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021128.html ] at least thousands of times the mass of our Sun [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/sun.html ] dominate. Many, called Seyfert Type I [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/education/astro/actgal/seyfert.html ], are very bright in visible light. Others, called Seyfert Type II [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/education/astro/actgal/seyfert.html ], are rather dim. The difference might be caused by some black holes accreting [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030601.html ] much more matter than others. Alternatively, the black holes in the center of Seyfert [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000215.html ] Type II galaxies might be obscured by a surrounding torus [ http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Torus.html ]. To help choose between these competing hypotheses, the nearby Seyfert II galaxy NGC 4388 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020603.html ] has been observed in X-ray light [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_astro/xrays.html ] recently by many recent Earth-orbiting X-ray observatories, including CGRO [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000408.html ], SIGMA [ http://hea.iki.rssi.ru/GRANAT/sigma/sigma.html ], BeppoSAX [ http://www.asdc.asi.it/bepposax/ ], INTEGRAL [ http://www.esa.int/export/esaSC/120374_index_0_m.html ], Chandra [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/about/axaf_mission.html ], and XMM-Newton [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991221.html ]. Recent data [ http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0406553 ] from INTEGRAL and XMM-Newton have found [ http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0720donutcloud.html ] that the X-ray flux in some X-ray colors varies rapidly, while flux in other X-ray colors is quite steady. The constant flux and apparent absorption of very specific X-ray colors by cool iron [ http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/26.html ] together give evidence [ http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM962V4QWD_index_0.html ] that the central black hole in NGC 4388 is seen through a thick torus [ http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM962V4QWD_index_1.html ] composed of molecular gas and dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030202.html ]. |
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