Bellatrix Orionis

X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Waterloo/C.Kirkpatrick et al.; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Optical: Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope/DSS

Check out this fantastic composite image of the Hydra A galaxy cluster.  The gas jets, observed by Chandra are super hot (approx ten million degrees) with radio emissions in pink which the Very Large Array (VLA) spotted.

It’s thought that some of the elements found in the jet had been produced in a Type Ia supernova in the large galaxy at the centre of the cluster.  It’s then thought that an outburst from the supermassive black hole then pushed the material outwards extending for almost 400,000 light years.

The outburst from the supermassive black hole also have created spaces, or cavities within the hot gas.  A fairly recent outburst created a pair of cavities visible in the image as dark regions.  The cavities are so large that it would be possible to put the Milky Way galaxy inside them.  There are even larger cavities, which are too faint to be visible in this image created by more powerful earlier tantrums from the black hole.  The largest cavity discovered so far extends for more than 670,000 light years.

Credit: Left panel: X-ray (NASA/CXC/Durham Univ./D.Alexander et al.); Optical (NASA/ESA/STScI/IoA/S.Chapman et al.); Lyman-alpha Optical (NAOJ/Subaru/Tohoku Univ./T.Hayashino et al.); Infrared (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Durham Univ./J.Geach et al.); Right, Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has been studying 29 gigantic blobs of hydrogen gas to ascertain the source of the huge amount of energy needed to make these structures glow.  These strange globules are called ‘Lyman-alpha blobs’ by astronomers because of the light they emit and are several hundred thousand light years across.  It’s also thought that they are only seen when the Universe is approximately two billion years old, or about 15% of its current age.

The composite image above shows one of the largest blobs observed in this study.  The glowing hydrogen gas in the blob is shown by a Lyman-alpha optical image (coloured yellow) from the National Astronomy Observatory of Japan’s Suburu telescope.  There is a galaxy located within the blob that is visible in a broadband optical image (white) from the Hubble Space Telescope and also an infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red).  The blue image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory shows evidence of a growing supermassive black hole in the centre of the galaxy.  The energy from this active black hole is enought to light up and heat the gas in the blob.  It’s also thought that radiation and winds from rapid star formation occuring in the galaxy have a similar effect.  There is also evidence of another four active black holes in the blobs.

The image top right shows an artist’s impression of what a galaxy may look like inside a blob when looked at from fairly close range.

For the further information go and see Chandra.

There’s an interesting article over at New Scientist about wondering black holes having caused something interesting to happen in Boötes back in 2006.

There’s an interesting article over at Scientific America regarding if it’s possible for the black holes more troublesome sibling to exist – the naked singularity.  It’s one of those strange ideas that’s been floating around for a while, but no-one seems to be really sure about it.

Check out the article and see what you think.  Is it possible for a naked singularity to form or is a black hole the way to go?  Personally I still think I perhaps need to read more on this subject as when I hear/read about a singularity forming it makes me think of Star Trek.

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/IoA/A. Fabian et al.; Optical: SDSS; Radio: STFC/JBO/MERLIN

The image on the right is made up of 3 images all showing the same region of the Chandra Deep Field North.  The image in blue is a deep image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, whilst the red  image is from the Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN), which is an array of radio telescopes across the UK.  Last but not least is an optical image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) which is shown in white, yellow and orange.

The diffuse blue object near the centre of the image is believed to be a cosmic “ghost” generated by a huge eruption from a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy.  This X-ray ghost, known as HDF 130, is all that remains after powerful radio waves from particles traveling away from the black hole at almost the speed of light, have died off.  As the energy of the elctrons spread out they produce x-rays by interacting with the photons that remain from the Big Bang.  The cigar-like shape of HDF 130 and its length of about 2.2 million light years are consistent with the properties of radio jets.

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/F. Massaro et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI/C.P. O'Dea et al.; Radio: NSF/VLA/CfA/F. Massaro, E. Liuzzo, A. Bonafede et al.

The intriguing appearance of galaxy 3C305 is thought to be cause by activity from a supermassive black hole which is located about 600 million light years away from Earth. The structures in the image on the left in red and light blue are X-ray and optical images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope respectively.  The optical data is from oxygen emission only and does not show the full extent of the galaxy.  Radio data are shown in darker blue and are from the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array in New Mexico, as well as the Multi-Element Radio-Linked Interferometer Network in the United Kingdom.

An unexpected feature of this multiwavelength image of 3C305 is that the radio emission which is produced by a jet from the central black hole does not closely overlap with the X-ray data.  The X-ray emission does appear to be associated with the optical emission.

Due to this information astronomers believe that th x-ray emission could be caused by either one of two different effects. One option is jets from the supermassive black hole (not visible in this image) are interacting with interstellar gas in the galaxy and heating it enough for it to emit X-rays.  In this scenario, gas heated by shocks would lie ahead of the jets. The other possibility is that bright radiation from regions close to the black hole infuses enough energy into the interstellar gas to cause it to glow.  Further information will be needed to decide which of these two alternatives is what is happening.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Madrid (McMaster University)

The flare is coming from HST-1 which is a clump of matter embedded in the jet of hot gas produced by a supermassive black hole in the middle of M87.  HST-1 is currently so bright that it’s even outshining the core of M87.  The black hole at the centre of M87 is thought to be the most massive found to date.

HST-1 has suprised astronomers by steadily brightening for several years, fading and then brightening again.

The Hubble Space Selescope has been used to observe this object for seven years now and has provided detailed untraviolet light views of  the events.  Other telescopes such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory have also been monitoring HST-1.  The object was first discovered by Hubble astronomers in 1999.  The gas knot is 214 light years from the galaxy’s core.

M87 is 54 million light years away in the Virgo Cluster which is a region with a high density of galaxies.  It’s hoped that he flare up may provide insights into the variability of black hole jets in distant galaxies which are often difficult to study due to the imense distances.

Even though many observations have been made astronomers are still unsure as to what is causing the brightening.  One explanation is that the jet is hitting a gas cloud or dust lane and then glows due to the collision.  Another suggestion is that the jet’s magnetic field lines are squeezed together, which creates a huge amount of energy.  This is a similar way to how solar flares develop on the Sun and also generate the auroras on Earth.

Astronomers are hoping that continued observations will expain what is causing the flaring an give a greater understanding of the jet.