Chandra Witnesses Big Blast from an Old Black Hole

Before and After Images in X-ray and Optical Light In Chandra observations that spanned several years, the ULX in M83 increased in X-ray brightness by at least 3,000 times. This sudden brightening is one of the largest changes in X-rays ever seen for this type of object, which do not usually show dormant periods. (Credit: Optical: ESO/VLT; Close-up - X-ray: NASA/CXC/Curtin University/R.Soria et al., Optical: NASA/STScI/Middlebury College/F.Winkler et al.)

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Astronomers keeping an eye out for a supernova explosion in the nearby galaxy M83 instead witnessed a prodigious blast of another type: a new ultraluminous X-ray source, or ULX. In what scientists are calling an “extraordinary outburst,” the ULX in M83 increased in X-ray brightness by at least 3,000 times, one of the largest changes in X-rays ever seen for this type of object.

“The flaring up of this ULX took us by surprise and was a sure sign we had discovered something new about the way black holes grow,” said Roberto Soria of Curtin University in Australia, who led the new study.

The researchers say this blast provides direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes and gives new insight into the nature of a mysterious class of black holes that can produce as much energy in X-rays as a million suns radiate at all wavelengths.

Astrophysicist Bill Blair of Johns Hopkins University, writing in the Chandra Blog, “A Funny Thing Happened While Waiting for the Next Supernova in M83,” said this galaxy, also known as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, “is an amazing gift of nature. At 15 million light years away, it is actually one of the closer galaxies (only 7-8 times more distant than the Andromeda galaxy), but it appears as almost exactly face-on, giving earthlings a fantastic view of its beautiful spiral arms and active star-forming nucleus.”

M83 has generated six observed supernovas since 1923, but the last one seen was in 1983. “We are overdue for a new supernova!” Blair wrote.

So, many astronomers have been observing M83, hoping to spot a new supernova, but instead saw a dramatic jump in X-ray brightness, which according to the researchers, likely occurred because of a sudden increase in the amount of material falling into the black hole.

A ULX can give off more X-rays than most “normal” binary systems in which a companion star is in orbit around a neutron star or black hole. The super-sized X-ray emission suggests ULXs contain black holes that might be much more massive than the ones found elsewhere in our galaxy.

Composite image of spiral galaxy M83. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/Curtin University/R. Soria et al., Optical: NASA/STScI/ Middlebury College/F. Winkler et al.)

The companion stars to ULXs, when identified, are usually young, massive stars, implying their black holes are also young. The latest research, however, provides direct evidence that ULXs can contain much older black holes and some sources may have been misidentified as young ones.

The observations of M83 were made over a several year period with Chandra. No sign of the ULX was found in historical X-ray images made with Einstein Observatory in 1980, ROSAT in 1994, the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton in 2003 and 2008, NASA’s Swift observatory in 2005, the Magellan Telescope observations in April 2009 or in a Hubble image obtained in August 2009.

But in 2011, Soria and his colleagues used optical images from the Gemini Observatory and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and saw a bright blue source at the position of the X-ray source.

The lack of a blue source in the earlier images indicates the black hole’s companion star is fainter, redder and has a much lower mass than most of the companions that previously have been directly linked to ULXs. The bright, blue optical emission seen in 2011 must have been caused by a dramatic accumulation of more material from the companion star.

“If the ULX only had been observed during its peak of X-ray emission in 2010, the system easily could have been mistaken for a black hole with a massive, much younger stellar companion, about 10 to 20 million years old,” said co-author Blair.

The companion to the black hole in M83 is likely a red giant star at least 500 million years old, with a mass less than four times the sun’s. Theoretical models for the evolution of stars suggest the black hole should be almost as old as its companion.

Another ULX containing a volatile, old black hole recently was discovered in the Andromeda galaxy by a team led by Amanpreet Kaur from Clemson University, published in the February 2012 issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Matthew Middleton and colleagues from the University of Durham reported more information in the March 2012 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. They used data from Chandra, XMM-Newton and HST to show the ULX is highly variable and its companion is an old, red star.

“With these two objects, it’s becoming clear there are two classes of ULX, one containing young, persistently growing black holes and the other containing old black holes that grow erratically,” said Kip Kuntz, a co-author of the new M83 paper, also of Johns Hopkins University. “We were very fortunate to observe the M83 object at just the right time to make the before and after comparison.”

A paper describing these results will appear in the May 10th issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

Sources: NASA, Chandra Blog

Supernova G350 Kicks Up Some X-Ray Dust

Vital clues about the devastating ends to the lives of massive stars can be found by studying the aftermath of their explosions. In its more than twelve years of science operations, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has studied many of these supernova remnants sprinkled across the Galaxy. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/I.Lovchinsky et al, IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Located some 14,700 light years from the Earth toward the center of our galaxy, a newly photographed supernova remnant cataloged as G350.1+0.3 is making astronomers scratch their heads. The star which created this unusual visage is suspected to have blown its top some 600 to 1,200 years ago. Although it would have been as bright as the event which created the “Crab”, chances are no one saw it due to the massive amounts of gas and dust at the Milky Way’s heart. Now NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the ESA’s XMM-Newton telescope has drawn back the curtain and we’re able to marvel at what happens when a supernova imparts a powerful X-ray “kick” to a neutron star!

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/I.Lovchinsky et al, IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Photographic proof from Chandra and XMM-Newton are full of clues which give rise to the possibility that a compact object located in the influence of G350.1+0.3 may be the core region of a shattered star. Since it is off-centered from the X-ray emissions, it must have received a powerful blast of energy during the supernova event and has been moving along at a speed of 3 million miles per hour ever since. This information agrees with an “exceptionally high speed derived for the neutron star in Puppis A and provides new evidence that extremely powerful ‘kicks’ can be imparted to neutron stars from supernova explosions.”

As you look at the photo, you’ll notice one thing in particular… the irregular shape. The Chandra data in this image appears as gold while the infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope is colored light blue. According to the research team, this unusual configuration may have been caused by the stellar debris field imparting itself into the surrounding cold molecular gas.

These results appeared in the April 10, 2011 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. The scientists on this paper were Igor Lovchinsky and Patrick Slane (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Bryan Gaensler (University of Sydney, Australia), Jack Hughes (Rutgers University), Stephen Ng (McGill University), Jasmina Lazendic (Monash University Clayton, Australia), Joseph Gelfand (New York University, Abu Dhabi), and Crystal Brogan (National Radio Astronomy Observatory).

Original Story Source: NASA Chandra News Release.

Astronomers Complete the Puzzle of Black Hole Description

The optical image on the left, from the Digitized Sky Survey, shows Cygnus X-1 outlined in a red box located near large active regions of star formation in the Milky Way that spans 700 light-years across. An artist’s illustration on the right depicts what astronomers believe is happening within the Cygnus X-1 system with the black hole pulling material from a massive, blue companion star. This material forms a disk (shown in red and orange) that rotates around the black hole before falling into it or being directed away in the form of powerful jets. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; Optical: Digitized Sky Survey.

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Light may not be able to escape a black hole, but now enough information has escaped one black hole’s clutches that astronomers have, for the first time, been able to provide a complete description of it. A team of astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and San Diego State University have made the most accurate measurements ever of X-ray binary system Cygnus X-1, allowing them to unravel the longstanding mysteries of its black hole and to retrace its history since its birth around six million years ago.

Cygnus X-1, which consists of a black hole that is drawing material from its massive blue companion star, was found to be emitting powerful X-rays nearly half a century ago. Since its discovery in 1964, this galactic X-ray source has been intensely scrutinized with astronomers attempting to gain information about its mass and spin. But without an accurate measurement of its distance from the Earth, which has been estimated to be between 5,800 and 7,800 light-years, we could only imagine what secrets Cygnus X-1 was harboring.

Astronomer Mark Reid of CfA led his team to garner the most accurate measurement of the distance to Cygnus X-1 with the help of the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a continent-wide radio-telescope system. The team locked down a direct trigonometric measurement of 6,070 light-years.

“Because no other information can escape a black hole, knowing its mass, spin and electrical charge gives a complete description of it,” says Reid who is a co-author of three papers on Cygnus X-1, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters (available here, here, and here). “The charge of this black hole is nearly zero, so measuring its mass and spin make our description complete.”

Using their new precise distance measurement along with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics and visible-light observations made over more than two decades, the team pieced together the “No Hair” theorem – the complete description that Reid speaks of – by revealing a hefty mass of nearly 15 solar masses and a turbo spin speed of 800 revolutions per second. “We now know that Cygnus X-1 is one of the most massive stellar black holes in the Milky Way,” says Jerry Orosz of San Diego State University, also an author of the paper with Reid and Lijun Gou of the CfA. “It’s spinning as fast as any black hole we’ve ever seen.”

As an added bonus, observations using the VLBA back in 2009 and 2010 had also measured Cygnus X-1’s movement through the galaxy leading scientists to the conclusion that it is much too slow to have been produced by the explosion of a supernova and without evidence of a large “kick” at birth, astronomers believe that it may have resulted from the dark collapse of a progenitor star with a mass greater than about 100 times the mass of the Sun that got lost in a vigorous stellar wind. “There are suggestions that this black hole could have formed without a supernova explosion and our results support those suggestions,” says Reid.

It seems that with these measurements, Professor Stephen Hawking has well and truly had to eat his own words after placing a bet with fellow astrophysicist Kip Thorne, a professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology, that Cygnus X-1 did not contain a black hole.

“For forty years, Cygnus X-1 has been the iconic example of a black hole. However, despite Hawking’s concession, I have never been completely convinced that it really does contain a black hole – until now,” says Thorne. “The data and modeling in these three papers at last provide a completely definitive description of this binary system.”

Sources: CfA

Space Telescopes Provide New Look at 2,000 Year Old Supernova

This image combines data from four different space telescopes to create a multi-wavelength view of all that remains of the oldest documented example of a supernova, called RCW 86.

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What caused a huge explosion nearly 2,000 years ago, seen by early Chinese astronomers? Scientists have long known that a “guest star” that had mysteriously appeared in the sky and stayed for about 8 months in the year 185 was the first documented supernova. But now the combined efforts of four space observatories have provided insight into this stellar explosion and why it was so huge – and why its shattered remains — the object known as RCW 86 – is now spread out to great distances.

“This supernova remnant got really big, really fast,” said Brian Williams, an astronomer at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. “It’s two to three times bigger than we would expect for a supernova that was witnessed exploding nearly 2,000 years ago. Now, we’ve been able to finally pinpoint the cause.”

By studying new infrared observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope and data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and previous data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton Observatory, astronomers were able to determine that the ancient supernova was a Type Ia supernova. And doing some “forensics” on the stellar remains, the astronomers could piece together that prior to exploding, winds from the white dwarf cleared out a huge “cavity,” a region of very low-density surrounding the system. The explosion into this cavity was able to expand much faster than it otherwise would have. The ejected material would have traveled into the cavity, unimpeded by gas and dust and spread out quickly.

This is the first time that astronomers have been able to deduce that this type of cavity was created, and scientists say the results may have significant implications for theories of white-dwarf binary systems and Type Ia supernovae.

At about 85 light-years in diameter, RCW occupies a region of the sky that is slightly larger than the full moon. It lies in the southern constellation of Circinus.

Source: JPL

Taking a Galaxy’s Temperature

The image above shows the variation in temperature over the span of NGC 5813. The outline encircles a region 367,000 light years in diameter, and the temperatures indicated are in millions of degrees. Red indicates warmer temperatures, blue cooler. This image uses information from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and optical imaging from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Image Credit: Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/S.Randall et al., Optical: SDSS

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The role that supermassive black holes play in the formation of galaxies is a “hot” topic in astronomy. Using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, an international team of astronomers have been able to create a temperature map of one galaxy, NGC 5813, which is located in the Virgo III Group of galaxies. The new map shows in unprecedented detail the history of various periods of activity of the Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN), which is associated with a supermassive black hole that resides at its center. They found that regular outbursts of the AGN maintained the temperature of the gas in the region of the galaxy, continually reheating the gas that would otherwise have cooled down.

Paper co-author Dr. Scott Randall of the Chandra Mission Planning Team at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said, “Although there are other systems that show AGN outburst shocks, this is still the only system where unambiguous shocks from multiple outbursts are seen. This allows us to directly measure the heating from shocks, and directly observe how often these shocks take place. Thus, at present NGC 5813 is *uniquely* well suited to the study of AGN heating.”

By studying images taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and combining these observations with those taken by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) and the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR), they were able to make out large cavities produced by periods of activity in the supermassive black hole. The researchers were able to determine that there were three pairs of large cavities, which corresponded to active outbursts of the galactic nucleus 3 million, 20 million and 90 million years ago (from our perspective here on Earth).

What makes the galaxy NGC 5813 especially suited to this study is its relative isolation from other galaxies that could influence the formation of these cavities – it is an older galaxy that is relatively undisturbed, allowing for these cavities in the gas to persist over such a long time period.

Current models of galaxy formation must take into account just how much of an influence the output of the supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy has on the formation of stars within the galaxy, and the evolution of the shape and size of the galaxy as a whole. This process of “AGN feedback” has a dramatic influence on how the galaxy takes shape. The research by Dr. Randall, et. al shows an intimate portrait of this process.

Dr. Randall explained, “This is an important result for stellar formation and galaxy evolution. The AGN heats the gas, preventing it from cooling and forming large amounts of stars. There have been several galaxy evolution models proposed that require this kind of “AGN feedback” near the centers of galaxies to explain the observed differences in galaxies. Here we show explicitly that this kind of feedback can and does take place, at least in this system.”

A labeled image of the various shock waves and cavities formed by the activity of the AGN. Image Credit: Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/S.Randall et al.

As you can see in the image directly above, various outbursts of the AGN create shock waves in the gas near the center of the galaxy. As these shock waves expanded and the galaxy evolved over millions of years, the heat generated by the shocks spread outwards and into the gas surrounding NGC 5813. The gas between all of the galaxies in a cluster is called the intracluster medium (ICM). The heat – which is produced by the friction of the gases at the edge of each of the shock waves – radiates outward into the surrounding gas, increasing its temperature.

The output of the jets streaming from the supermassive black hole in the center vary over a span of roughly 10 million years, and the amount of energy that each outburst puts out is rather variable – the difference between the last two largest outbursts, for example, is almost an order of magnitude.

This process is cyclical, though the details of the mechanisms involved are still a topic that isn’t completely understood.

Dr. Randall explained this process as follows:

“…the gas cools radiatively, and flows in towards the AGN. The cool gas is rapidly accreted by the black hole, dirving [sic] an energetic outburst. The outburst heats the gas (via shocks), stopping the inflow and starving the AGN. The gas is then able to cool once more, and the cycle repeats, with, in this case, a period of about 10 million years. However, the fine details of how the jet and the ICM interact are not currently well uderstood [sic], and it is not clear how well this simple model describes reality. Our goal with the upcoming deep Chandra observation is to better understand the details of this process, most likely through comparisons with detailed numerical simulations.”

Further observations of NGC 5813 in the fall of 2011 using Chandra are in the works, Dr. Randall said. The results of their analysis will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. A preprint version of the paper, “Shocks and Cavities from Multiple Outbursts in the Galaxy Group NGC 5813: A Window to AGN Feedback,” is available on Arxiv.

Sources: Chandra press release, Arxiv paper, email interview with Dr. Scott Randall