Six images that combine Chandra data with those from other telescopes. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO, Optical: NASA/STScI, Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA).
What a gem! This huge black hole in the middle of Hercules A is making gas around it super-heated to millions of degrees, making it shine brightly in X-Rays. The Chandra X-Ray Telescope captured the scene and in a new data release this week, telescope officials cracked open the archives to give us gems such as this.
The release comes as a part of American Archives Month, where every year Chandra officials go through the archives and pull out old Chandra data, combining it with the work of other telescopes to get as much information as possible about the objects being studied.
Chandra is one of three NASA “Great Observatories” still active, with the other two being the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. It’s been in operation now for more than 15 years.
You can see the six new pictures below. To read more about each of these objects, head on over to this link.
Six photos released from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory’s archive in October 2014. Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
In honor of Dr. Stephen Hawking, the COSMOS center will be creating the most detailed 3D mapping effort of the Universe to date. Credit: BBC, Illus.: T.Reyes
Dr. Stephen Hawking delivered a disturbing theory in 1974 that claimed black holes evaporate. He said black holes are not absolutely black and cold but rather radiate energy and do not last forever. So-called “Hawking radiation” became one of the physicist’s most famous theoretical predictions. Now, 40 years later, a researcher has announced the creation of a simulation of Hawking radiation in a laboratory setting.
The possibility of a black hole came from Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. Karl Schwarzchild in 1916 was the first to realize the possibility of a gravitational singularity with a boundary surrounding it at which light or matter entering cannot escape.
This month, Jeff Steinhauer from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, describes in his paper, “Observation of self-amplifying Hawking radiation in an analogue black-hole laser” in the journal Nature, how he created an analogue event horizon using a substance cooled to near absolute zero and using lasers was able to detect the emission of Hawking radiation. Could this be the first valid evidence of the existence of Hawking radiation and consequently seal the fate of all black holes?
This is not the first attempt at creating a Hawking radiation analogue in a laboratory. In 2010, an analogue was created from a block of glass, a laser, mirrors and a chilled detector (Phys. Rev. Letter, Sept 2010); no smoke accompanied the mirrors. The ultra-short pulse of intense laser light passing through the glass induced a refractive index perturbation (RIP) which functioned as an event horizon. Light was seen emitting from the RIP. Nevertheless, the results by F. Belgiorno et al. remain controversial. More experiments were still warranted.
The latest attempt at replicating Hawking radiation by Steinhauer takes a more high tech approach. He creates a Bose-Einstein condensate, an exotic state of matter at very near absolute zero temperature. Boundaries created within the condensate functioned as an event horizon. However, before going into further details, let us take a step back and consider what Steinhauer and others are trying to replicate.
Artists illustrations of black holes are guided by descriptions given to them by theorists. There are many illustrations. A black hole has never been seen up close. However, to have Hawking radiation, all the theatrics of accretion disks and matter being funneled off a companion star are unnecessary. Just a black hole in the darkness of space will do. (Illustration: public domain)
The recipe for the making Hawking radiation begins with a black hole. Any size black hole will do. Hawking’s theory states that smaller black holes will more rapidly radiate than larger ones and in the absence of matter falling into them – accretion, will “evaporate” much faster. Giant black holes can take longer than a million times the present age of the Universe to evaporate by way of Hawking radiation. Like a tire with a slow leak, most black holes would get you to the nearest repair station.
So you have a black hole. It has an event horizon. This horizon is also known as the Schwarzchild radius; light or matter checking into the event horizon can never check out. Or so this was the accepted understanding until Dr. Hawking’s theory upended it. And outside the event horizon is ordinary space with some caveats; consider it with some spices added. At the event horizon the force of gravity from the black hole is so extreme that it induces and magnifies quantum effects.
All of space – within us and surrounding us to the ends of the Universe includes a quantum vacuum. Everywhere in space’s quantum vacuum, virtual particle pairs are appearing and disappearing; immediately annihilating each other on extremely short time scales. With the extreme conditions at the event horizon, virtual particle and anti-particles pairs, such as, an electron and positron, are materializing. The ones that appear close enough to an event horizon can have one or the other virtual particle zapped up by the black holes gravity leaving only one particle which consequently is now free to add to the radiation emanating from around the black hole; the radiation that as a whole is what astronomers can use to detect the presence of a black hole but not directly observe it. It is the unpairing of virtual particles by the black hole at its event horizon that causes the Hawking radiation which by itself represents a net loss of mass from the black hole.
So why don’t astronomers just search in space for Hawking radiation? The problem is that the radiation is very weak and is overwhelmed by radiation produced by many other physical processes surrounding the black hole with an accretion disk. The radiation is drowned out by the chorus of energetic processes. So the most immediate possibility is to replicate Hawking radiation by using an analogue. While Hawking radiation is weak in comparison to the mass and energy of a black hole, the radiation has essentially all the time in the Universe to chip away at its parent body.
This is where the convergence of the growing understanding of black holes led to Dr. Hawking’s seminal work. Theorists including Hawking realized that despite the Quantum and Gravitational theory that is necessary to describe a black hole, black holes also behave like black bodies. They are governed by thermodynamics and are slaves to entropy. The production of Hawking radiation can be characterized as a thermodynamic process and this is what leads us back to the experimentalists. Other thermodynamic processes could be used to replicate the emission of this type of radiation.
Using the Bose-Einstein condensate in a vessel, Steinhauer directed laser beams into the delicate condensate to create an event horizon. Furthermore, his experiment creates sound waves that become trapped between two boundaries that define the event horizon. Steinhauer found that the sound waves at his analogue event horizon were amplified as happens to light in a common laser cavity but also as predicted by Dr. Hawking’s theory of black holes. Light escapes from the laser present at the analogue event horizon. Steinhauer explains that this escaping light represents the long sought Hawking radiation.
Publication of this work in Nature underwent considerable peer review to be accepted but that alone does not validate his findings. Steinhauer’s work will now withstand even greater scrutiny. Others will attempt to duplicate his work. His lab setup is an analogue and it remains to be verified that what he is observing truly represents Hawking radiation.
An artists illustration of the early Universe. Image Credit: NASA
There’s nothing more out of this world than quasi-stellar objects or more simply – quasars. These are the most powerful and among the most distant objects in the Universe. At their center is a black hole with the mass of a million or more Suns. And these powerhouses are fairly compact – about the size of our Solar System. Understanding how they came to be and how — or if — they evolve into the galaxies that surround us today are some of the big questions driving astronomers.
Now, a new paper by Yue Shen and Luis C. Ho – “The diversity of quasars unified by accretion and orientation” in the journal Nature confirms the importance of a mathematical derivation by the famous astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington during the first half of the 20th Century, in understanding not just stars but the properties of quasars, too. Ironically, Eddington did not believe black holes existed, but now his derivation, the Eddington Luminosity, can be used more reliably to determine important properties of quasars across vast stretches of space and time.
A quasar is recognized as an accreting (meaning- matter falling upon) super massive black hole at the center of an “active galaxy”. Most known quasars exist at distances that place them very early in the Universe; the most distant is at 13.9 billion light years, a mere 770 million years after the Big Bang. Somehow, quasars and the nascent galaxies surrounding them evolved into the galaxies present in the Universe today. At their extreme distances, they are point-like, indistinguishable from a star except that the spectra of their light differ greatly from a star’s. Some would be as bright as our Sun if they were placed 33 light years away meaning that they are over a trillion times more luminous than our star.
An artists illustration of the central engine of a quasar. These “Quasi-stellar Objects” QSOs are now recognized as the super massive black holes at the center of emerging galaxies in the early Universe. (Photo Credit: NASA)
The Eddington luminosity defines the maximum luminosity that a star can exhibit that is in equilibrium; specifically, hydrostatic equilibrium. Extremely massive stars and black holes can exceed this limit but stars, to remain stable for long periods, are in hydrostatic equilibrium between their inward forces – gravity – and the outward electromagnetic forces. Such is the case of our star, the Sun, otherwise it would collapse or expand which in either case, would not have provided the stable source of light that has nourished life on Earth for billions of years.
Generally, scientific models often start simple, such as Bohr’s model of the hydrogen atom, and later observations can reveal intricacies that require more complex theory to explain, such as Quantum Mechanics for the atom. The Eddington luminosity and ratio could be compared to knowing the thermal efficiency and compression ratio of an internal combustion engine; by knowing such values, other properties follow.
Several other factors regarding the Eddington Luminosity are now known which are necessary to define the “modified Eddington luminosity” used today.
The new paper in Nature shows how the Eddington Luminosity helps understand the driving force behind the main sequence of quasars, and Shen and Ho call their work the missing definitive proof that quantifies the correlation of a quasar properties to a quasar’s Eddington ratio.
They used archival observational data to uncover the relationship between the strength of the optical Iron [Fe] and Oxygen[O III] emissions – strongly tied to the physical properties of the quasar’s central engine – a super-massive black hole, and the Eddington ratio. Their work provides the confidence and the correlations needed to move forward in our understanding of quasars and their relationship to the evolution of galaxies in the early Universe and up to our present epoch.
Astronomers have been studying quasars for a little over 50 years. Beginning in 1960, quasar discoveries began to accumulate but only through radio telescope observations. Then, a very accurate radio telescope measurement of Quasar 3C 273 was completed using a Lunar occultation. With this in hand, Dr. Maarten Schmidt of California Institute of Technology was able to identify the object in visible light using the 200 inch Palomar Telescope. Reviewing the strange spectral lines in its light, Schmidt reached the right conclusion that quasar spectra exhibit an extreme redshift and it was due to cosmological effects. The cosmological redshift of quasars meant that they are at a great distance from us in space and time. It also spelled the demise of the Steady-State theory of the Universe and gave further support to an expanding Universe that emanated from a singularity – the Big Bang.
Dr. Maarten Schmidt, Caltech, with Donald Lynden-Bell, were the first recipients of the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics, “for their seminal contributions to understanding the nature of quasars”. While in high school, this author had the privilege to meet Dr. Schmidt at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History after his presentation to a group of students. (Photo Credit: Caltech)
The researchers, Yue Shen and Luis C. Ho are from the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University working with the Carnegie Observatories, Pasadena, California.
Artist's impression of cosmic rays striking Earth (Simon Swordy/University of Chicago, NASA)
Quick, do you have an Android phone in your pocket? A few small changes and you could help physicists probe more of the curious nature of cosmic rays, high-energy particles that emanate from outside our solar system.
Just download an app, cover up your phone’s camera with duct tape, then place it somewhere (running idle) with the screen facing up. If a particle “event” happens, the information will be logged in a central database.
The project (called Distributed Electronic Cosmic-ray Observatory or DECO) aims to record secondary particles called muons that occur when cosmic rays hit the Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists believe cosmic rays are created in black holes and supernovas, but more studies are needed.
Screenshot of an Android app developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that aims to capture cosmic rays. Credit: Justin Vandenbroucke
Researchers at the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC), led by Justin Vandenbroucke, note that there are things about cosmic rays that confuse physicists. Their paths in space change as they go across magnetic fields, and it makes searching for other astronomy events difficult. That’s where they hope the phone study will be useful.
“Smartphone cameras use silicon chips that work through what is called the photoelectric effect, in which particles of light, or photons, hit a silicon surface and release an electric charge,” the University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote in a press release.
“The same is true for muons. When a muon strikes the semiconductor that underpins a smartphone camera, it liberates an electric charge and creates a signature in pixels that can be logged, stored and analyzed.”
For more details on how to run and use the app, consult this page (it’s the second item).
UNC-Chapel Hill physics professor Laura Mersini-Houghton has proven mathematically that black holes don't exist. (Source: unc.edu)
That’s the conclusion reached by one researcher from the University of North Carolina: black holes can’t exist in our Universe — not mathematically, anyway.
“I’m still not over the shock,” said Laura Mersini-Houghton, associate physics professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. “We’ve been studying this problem for a more than 50 years and this solution gives us a lot to think about.”
In a news article spotlighted by UNC the scenario suggested by Mersini-Houghton is briefly explained. Basically, when a massive star reaches the end of its life and collapses under its own gravity after blasting its outer layers into space — which is commonly thought to result in an ultra-dense point called a singularity surrounded by a light- and energy-trapping event horizon — it undergoes a period of intense outgoing radiation (the sort of which was famously deduced by Stephen Hawking.) This release of radiation is enough, Mersini-Houghton has calculated, to cause the collapsing star to lose too much mass to allow a singularity to form. No singularity means no event horizon… and no black hole.
Artist’s conception of the event horizon of a black hole. Credit: Victor de Schwanberg/Science Photo Library
So what does happen to massive stars when they die? Rather than falling ever inwards to create an infinitely dense point hidden behind a space-time “firewall” — something that, while fascinating to ponder and a staple of science fiction, has admittedly been notoriously tricky for scientists to reconcile with known physics — Mersini-Houghton suggests that they just “probably blow up.” (Source)
According to the UNC article Mersini-Houghton’s research “not only forces scientists to reimagine the fabric of space-time, but also rethink the origins of the universe.”
Hm.
The submitted papers on this research are publicly available on arXiv.org and can be found here and here.
Don’t believe it? I’m not surprised. I’m certainly no physicist but I do expect that there will be many scientists (and layfolk) who’ll have their own take on Mersini-Houghton’s findings (*ahem* Brian Koberlein*) especially considering 1. the popularity of black holes in astronomical culture, and 2. the many — scratch that; the countless — observations that have been made on quite black hole-ish objects found throughout the Universe.
So what do you think? Have black holes just been voted off the cosmic island? Or are the holes more likely in the research? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Want to hear more from Mersini-Houghton herself? Here’s a link to a video explaining her view of why event horizons and singularities might simply be a myth.
Artist's conception of a supermassive black hole in a galaxy's center. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In a finding that could turn supermassive black hole formation theories upside-down, astronomers have spotted one of these beasts inside a tiny galaxy just 157 light-years across — about 500 times smaller than the Milky Way.
The clincher will be if the team can find more black holes like it, and that’s something they’re already starting to work on after the discovery inside of galaxy M60-UCD1. The ultracompact galaxy is one of only about 50 known to astronomers in the nearest galaxy clusters.
“It’s very much like a pinprick in the sky,” said lead researcher Anil Seth, an astrophysicist at the University of Utah, of M60-UCD1 during an online press briefing Tuesday (Sept. 16).
Seth said he realized something special was happening when he saw the plot for stellar motions inside of M60-UCD1, based on data from the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii. The stars in the center of the galaxy were orbiting much more rapidly than those at the edge. The velocity was unexpected given the kind of stars that are in the galaxy.
“Immediately when I saw the stellar motions map, I knew we were seeing something exciting,” Seth said. “I knew pretty much right away there was an interesting result there.”
Ultracompact dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1 shines in the inset image based on images from the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Telescope. Chandra data is pink, and Hubble data is red, green and blue. The large galaxy dominating the field of view is M60. At the right edge is NGC 4647. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MSU/J.Strader et al, Optical: NASA/STScI
In its weight class, M60-UCD1 is a standout. Last year, Seth was second co-author on a group that announced that it was the densest nearby galaxy, with stars jam-packed 25 times closer than in the Milky Way. It’s also one of the brightest they know of, a fact that is helped by the galaxy’s relative closeness to Earth. It’s roughly 54 million light-years away, as is the massive galaxy it orbits: M60. The two galaxies are only 20,000 light-years apart.
Supermassive black holes are known to lurk in the centers of most larger galaxies, including the Milky Way. How they got there in the first place, however, is unclear. The find inside of M60-UCD1 is especially intriguing given the relative size of the black hole to the galaxy itself. The black hole is about 15% of the galaxy’s mass, with an equivalent mass of 21 million Suns. The Milky Way’s black hole, by contrast, takes up less than a percentage of our galaxy’s mass.
Given so few ultracompact galaxies are known to astronomers, some basic properties are a mystery. For example, the mass of these galaxy types tends to be higher than expected based on their starlight.
Some astronomers suggest it’s because they have more massive stars than other galaxy types, but Seth said measurements of stars within M60-UCD1 (based on their orbital motion) show normal masses. The extra mass instead comes from the black hole, he argues, and that will likely be true of other ultracompact galaxies as well.
A Hubble Space Telescope image of ultracompact galaxy M60-UCD1 (inset), which is suspected to host a supermassive black hole at its center. It is orbiting the nearby massive galaxy M60. Within the same field of view is NGC 4647. Credit: NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute/European Space Agency
“It’s a new place to look for black holes that was previously not recognized,” he said, but acknowledged the idea of black holes existing in similar galaxies will not be widely accepted until the team makes more finds. An alternative explanation to a black hole could be a suite of low-mass stars or neutron stars that do not give off a lot of light, but Seth said the number of these required in M60-UCD1 is “unreasonably high.”
His team plans to look at several other ultracompact galaxies such as M60-UCD1, but perhaps only seven to eight others would be bright enough from Earth to perform these measurements, he said. (Further work would likely require an instrument such as the forthcoming Thirty-Meter Telescope, he said.) Additionally, Seth has research interests in globular clusters — vast collections of stars — and plans a visit to Hawaii next month to search for black holes in these objects as well.
Results were published today (Sept. 17) in the journal Nature.
A view of the core of Messier 82 (M82), also known as the Cigar Galaxy. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
There’s a bit of a mystery buried in the heart of the Cigar Galaxy, known more formally as M82 or Messier 82. Shining brightly in X-rays is a black hole (called M82 X-1) that straddles an unusual line between small and huge black holes, new research has revealed.
The new study reveals for the first time just how big this black hole is — about 400 times the mass of the sun — after about a decade of struggling to figure this out.
“Between the two extremes of stellar and supermassive black holes, it’s a real desert, with only about half a dozen objects whose inferred masses place them in the middle ground,” stated Tod Strohmayer, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Scientists figured this out by looking at changes in brightness in X-rays, which fluctuate according to how gas behaves as it falls towards a black hole. At the event horizon — that spot where you’re doomed, even if you’re light — is where the fluctuation happen most frequently. In general, larger black holes have these fluctuations less frequently, but they weren’t sure if this would apply to something that is of M82 X-1’s size.
But by going through old data from NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite — which ceased operations in 2012 — the scientists uncovered a similar pulsing relationship to what you see in larger black holes.
Specifically, they saw X-ray variations repeating 5.1 and 3.3 times a second, which is a similar 3:2 ratio to other black holes studied. This allows them to extend the measurement scale to this black hole, NASA stated.
Results of the study were published this week in Nature. The research was led by Dheeraj Pasham, a graduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Artist concept of matter swirling around a black hole. (NASA/Dana Berry/SkyWorks Digital)
Black holes one billion times the Sun’s mass or more lie at the heart of many galaxies, driving their evolution. Although common today, evidence of supermassive black holes existing since the infancy of the Universe, one billion years or so after the Big Bang, has puzzled astronomers for years.
How could these giants have grown so massive in the relatively short amount of time they had to form? A new study led by Tal Alexander from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Priyamvada Natarajn from Yale University, may provide a solution.
Black holes are often mistaken to be monstrous creatures that suck in dust and gas at an enormous rate. But this couldn’t be further from the truth (in fact the words “suck” and “black hole” in the same sentence makes me cringe). Although they typically accumulate bright accretion disks — swirling disks of gas and dust that make them visible across the observable Universe — these very disks actually limit the speed of growth.
First, as matter in an accretion disk gets close to the black hole, traffic jams occur that slow down any other infalling material. Second, as matter collides within these traffic jams, it heats up, generating energy radiation that actually drives gas and dust away from the black hole.
A star or a gas stream can actually be on a stable orbit around the black hole, much as a planet orbits around a star. So it is quite a challenge for astronomers to think of ways that would make a black hole grow to supermassive proportions.
Luckily, Alexander and Natarajan may have found a way to do this: by placing the black hole within a cluster of thousands of stars, they’re able to operate without the restrictions of an accretion disk.
Black holes are generally thought to form when massive stars, weighing tens of solar masses, explode after their nuclear fuel is spent. Without the nuclear furnace at its core pushing against gravity, the star collapses. While the inner layers fall inward to form a black hole of only about 10 solar masses, the outer layers fall faster, hitting the inner layers, and rebounding in a huge supernova explosion. At least that’s the simple version.
The erratic path of the black hole through the gas (black line) is randomized by the surrounding stars (yellow circles). Meanwhile, dense cold gas (green arrows) flows toward the center of the cluster (red cross). Credit: Weizmann Institute of Science.
The team began with a model of a black hole, created from this stellar blast, embedded within a cluster of thousands of stars. A continuous flow of dense, cold, opaque gas fell into the black hole. But here’s the trick: the gravitational pull of many nearby stars caused it to zigzag randomly, preventing it from forming an accretion disk.
Without an accretion disk, not only is matter more able to fall into the black hole from all sides, but it isn’t slowed down in the accretion disk itself.
All in all, the model suggests that a black hole 10 times the mass of the Sun could grow to more than 10 billion times the mass of the Sun by one billion years after the Big Bang.
An artist's conception of a supermassive black hole's jets. Credit: NASA / Dana Berry / SkyWorks Digital
The supermassive black holes in the cores of most massive galaxies wreak havoc on their immediate surroundings. During their most active phases — when they ignite as luminous quasars — they launch extremely powerful and high-velocity outflows of gas.
These outflows can sweep up and heat material, playing a pivotal role in the formation and evolution of massive galaxies. Not only have astronomers observed them across the visible Universe, they also play a key ingredient in theoretical models.
But the physical nature of the outflows themselves has been a longstanding mystery. What physical mechanism causes gas to reach such high speeds, and in some cases be expelled from the galaxy?
A new study provides the first direct evidence that these outflows are accelerated by energetic jets produced by the supermassive black hole.
Using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, a team of astronomers led by Clive Tadhunter from Sheffield University, observed the nearby active galaxy IC 5063. At locations in the galaxy where its jets are impacting regions of dense gas, the gas is moving at extraordinary speeds of over 600,000 miles per hour.
“Much of the gas in the outflows is in the form of molecular hydrogen, which is fragile in the sense that it is destroyed at relatively low energies,” said Tadhunter in a press release. “I find it extraordinary that the molecular gas can survive being accelerated by jets of highly energetic particles moving at close to the speed of light.
As the jets travel through the galactic matter, they disrupt the surrounding gas and generate shock waves. These shock waves not only accelerate the gas, but also heat it. The team estimates the shock waves heat the gas to temperatures high enough to ionize the gas and dissociate the molecules. Molecular hydrogen is only formed in the significantly cooler post-shock gas.
“We suspected that the molecules must have been able to reform after the gas had been completely upset by the interaction with a fast plasma jet,” said Raffaella Morganti from the Kapteyn Institute Groningen University. “Our direct observations of the phenomenon have confirmed that this extreme situation can indeed occur. Now we need to work at describing the exact physics of the interaction.”
In interstellar space, molecular hydrogen forms on the surface of dust grains. But in this scenario, the dust is likely to have been destroyed in the intense shock waves. While it is possible for molecular hydrogen to form without the aid of dust grains (as seen in the early Universe) the exact mechanism in this case is still unknown.
The research helps answer a longstanding question — providing the first direct evidence that jets accelerate the molecular outflows seen in active galaxies — and asks new ones.
This simulation shows the possible behavior of a gas cloud that has been observed approaching the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Graphic by ESO/MPE/Marc Schartmann.
Wondering about the latest news on the intriguing object called ‘G2’ that is making its closest approach to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy? You might be able to get the latest update on this object in real time during a rare live-streamed observing run from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Watch live above.
The two 10-meter Keck Observatory telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea will be steered by astronomer Andrea Ghez and her team of observers from the UCLA Galactic Center Group for two nights to study our galaxy’s supermassive black hole, with an attempt to focus in on the enigmatic G2 to see if it is still intact. They’ll also be setting up a test for Einstein’s General Relativity and gathering more data on what they describe as The Paradox of Youth: young objects paradoxically developing around the black hole.
Here’s the time for the livestream in various timezones:
July 3, 2014 @ 9 pm – 10 pm Hawaii
July 4, 2014 @ Midnight – 1 am Pacific
July 4, 2014 @ 3 am – 4 am Eastern
The most previous observations by the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, according to an Astronomer’s Telegram from May 2, 2014 show that the gas cloud called ‘G2’ was surprisingly still intact, even during its closest approach to the supermassive black hole. This means G2 is not just a gas cloud, but likely has a star inside.
“We conclude that G2, which is currently experiencing its closest approach, is still intact, in contrast to predictions for a simple gas cloud hypothesis and therefore most likely hosts a central star,” said the May 2 Telegram. “Keck LGSAO observations of G2 will continue in the coming months to monitor how this unusual object evolves as it emerges from periapse passage.”
For additional info, see our two previous articles about G2:
