Chandra Captures Giant Ring of Black Holes
10 February 2011 02:23


Arp 147 contains a spiral galaxy (right) that collided with an elliptical galaxy (left), triggering a wave of star formation. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/S.Rappaport et al, Optical: NASA/STScI


From a Chandra press release:

Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes a new image of a ring — not of jewels — but of black holes. This composite image of Arp 147, a pair of interacting galaxies located about 430 million light years from Earth, shows X-rays from the NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, blue) produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md.

Arp 147 contains the remnant of a spiral galaxy (right) that collided with the elliptical galaxy on the left. This collision has produced an expanding wave of star formation that shows up as a blue ring containing in abundance of massive young stars. These stars race through their evolution in a few million years or less and explode as supernovas, leaving behind neutron stars and black holes.

A fraction of the neutron stars and black holes will have companion stars, and may become bright X-ray sources as they pull in matter from their companions. The nine X-ray sources scattered around the ring in Arp 147 are so bright that they must be black holes, with masses that are likely ten to twenty times that of the Sun.


This composite image of Arp 147 shows Chandra X-ray data in pink, Hubble optical data in red, green and blue, ultraviolet GALEX data in green and infrared Spitzer data in red. (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/S.Rappaport et al, Optical: NASA/STScI)


An X-ray source is also detected in the nucleus of the red galaxy on the left and may be powered by a poorly-fed supermassive black hole. This source is not obvious in the composite image but can easily be seen in the X-ray image. Other objects unrelated to Arp 147 are also visible: a foreground star in the lower left of the image and a background quasar as the pink source above and to the left of the red galaxy.

Infrared observations with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and ultraviolet observations with NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) have allowed estimates of the rate of star formation in the ring. These estimates, combined with the use of models for the evolution of binary stars have allowed the authors to conclude that the most intense star formation may have ended some 15 million years ago, in Earth’s time frame.




http://www.universetoday.com/83197/chandra-captures-giant-ring-of-black-holes/


I jest luuurve this technolgy that gives us ther most incedible views of our larger universeout there....

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee


Sky - you've done it again. I am sitting here with tears! That is AWESOME in the true meaning of the word. Thank you!

Aint it a pitty that we live on opposite sides of the globe BB? I would love to sit next to a fire with a good cup of tea and nat the night away with you and your family. There is so much to chat about!


Oh well - who knows, when the plates move we might get lucky - Hey?