Eye on Science, Science Blog, Michael D. Lemonick, TIME

December 17, 2007 1:00

Cosmic Firehose

Posted by Michael Lemonick | Comments (19) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

Composite image of a cosmic jet spewing from one galaxy and caroming off another/X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/D.Evans et al.; Optical/UV: NASA/STScI; Radio: NSF/VLA/CfA/D.Evans et al., STFC/JBO/MERLIN

Artist's rendering of the same thing, so you can see what's going on/NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

The most up-to-date thinking about black holes is that giant ones, with as much mass as a million or more stars each, lurk at the cores of many galaxies. As gas tries to funnel into these powerful cosmic vacuum cleaners, it heats up and spews jets of matter out into space. When one of those jet is aimed straight at us, it's called a quasar. Fortunately, they're all much too far away to pose a danger to us.

In this distant system, called 3C321, the jet is aimed straight at a nearby galaxy, where it strikes a glancing blow and then sprays out into intergalactic space. The false-color image at the top is a composite of measurements made by optical (orange), radio (blue), X-ray (purple) and ultraviolet (orange) detectors on several ground- and space-based telescopes, including the Hubble, Chandra, VLA and MERLIN.

The smaller galaxy is rotating around the larger (unofficially named the "death star galaxy") —right into the path of the jet. If something like that were happening to the Milky Way, we wouldn't be around to talk about it.

Sphere Related Blogs & Articles

Reader Comments (19)

Anonymous:

M.L.
Great post and fascinating images. Could you provide a scientific-laymen's explanation of how the jet off matter escapes the gravity of the black hole?

--It's because the compression and heating in the ring of gas surrounding the black hole are so high that they squirt out jets like juice from an orange. As long as it's outside the hole's event horizon, material can still escape.
M.L.

Posted by Anonymous | December 17, 2007 1:41 PM

Barton Paul Levenson:

[[M.L.
Great post and fascinating images. Could you provide a scientific-laymen's explanation of how the jet off matter escapes the gravity of the black hole?

Just to pound that point further into the ground -- the accretion ring is outside the black hole, though close to it. Nothing is escaping from the black hole itself.

Posted by Barton Paul Levenson | December 17, 2007 4:27 PM

Saint Andeol:

so if we were in the smaller galaxy, getting fired upon, we'd see it coming, right? given the distance between galaxies, it'd take a couple hundred thousand years, wouldn't it? or at least a couple tens of thousands?

maybe that would give impetus for us to figure out intergalactic FTL travel. y'know, like a deadline for homework, but if you don't finish it, you die.

what i'm trying to say is, i hope no one died in that galaxy. unless they were evil.

--Not anyone you know, anyway.
M.L.

Posted by Saint Andeol | December 17, 2007 5:30 PM

David:

Depends on how fast that jet is going...You'd see the light first, then depending on how close to the speed of light it's traveling that would determine how much warning you're going to get before lights out.

Posted by David | December 17, 2007 7:35 PM

Saint Andeol:

@ David

Oh yeah, I forgot how light worked for a second. I'm thinking the intervening distance might slow down the gas a bit, but we'd see the initial lightshow as the gas got ejected. then they'd have to do lots of math to figure out when we'd die.

What this tells me is that with all the crazy stuff that can happen in the universe, we should really work on spreadin our species, at least throughout the galaxy. We don't wanna put all our people-eggs in one planet-basket.

Posted by Saint Andeol | December 18, 2007 11:28 AM

Dave Briggs:

There are so many fascinating, wondrous and glorious things out there. So many would be deadly to us were it not for the astronomical distances! Even our own sun would turn us into toast if we were closer than the 93 millions.
You can sit in awe of what we can see already but I think the awe is going to increase exponentially as time goes by and our sensors increase in range and flexibility!

Posted by Dave Briggs | December 20, 2007 3:55 PM

Illustrateur:

These images are amazing...
Thank you so much... I am under a wonderful sky not far away from Paris, and I look at it quite differently now...

--Merci
M.L.

Posted by Illustrateur | January 13, 2008 6:17 AM

brg8:

تامر حسني-برامج-1-a1-19-b2-78-71-18-21-59-60-58-61-22-42-9-a9-b9-b3-bb-77-65-53-73-56-49-5-84-ss-دردشة-شات-دردشه-دردشات-دردشه
كتابيه-دردشة كتابية-شات
كتابي دردشه صوتيه-دردشة
صوتية-صوتيه-صوتي-شات
صوتي 57-63-62-67-6-b6-b7-ab-6-29-75-4-8-82-83-15-16-17-11-12-55-13-72-80-79-25-64-24-51-26-tt-برامج
جوال-مقاطع بلوتوث-مسجات-نغمات-ثيمات-العاب
جوال-تصاميم-هكر-صور-صور
انمي-صور فنانين-ماسنجر-افلام-افلام
اجنبيه-منتدى للتعارف-منتديات
ادبية-منتدى للبنات فقط-العاب-العاب
بنات-سكس اناشيد-صور
سيارات-رياضة-تحميل
اهداف-محمد-سياحة
وسفر-منتديات عامة-منتديات
اسلامية-منتديات سياسيه-تعليم
لغات اجنبيه-تعليم اللغه الانجليزية نكت-خواطر-شعر-قصص-اساطير-روايات-حكم
وامثال-ازياء-منتدى
العروس-طبخ-طب-علم
النفس-برق-موقع
اغاني-مركز تحميل منتديات-شات-دردشة-دليل
مواقع-مسجات--ثيمات-صور بنات-صور
حب-1-2-3-4-5
6-7-8-9-10-دردشة
بنت الدلع-دردشة بنات-شات
بنات-شات الحب-دردشة
الحب-منتديات بنات-شات
الغلا-صور رومانسيه-صور
رومنسيه-صور فناين-صور
سيارات-افلام-خواطر-ازياء-صور
حلوه-روايات-كويت
25-هيفاء وهبي-بنات
السعودية-موقع عمرو خالد-ناصر
الفراعنة-نانسي عجرم-ياسر
القحطاني-شات-نغمات
نوكيا-قصص وروايات-مسجات حب-مسجات
عتاب-مسجات شوق-
مسجات مقالب-مسجات
نكت-مسجات حلوة-بلياردو-شعر
حامد زيد-ازياء اطفال-ازياء
خليجية-فساتين سهرة-فساتين
افراح-مركز تحميل صور مقاطع فيديو مركز تحميل الصور تحميل صور صور رومانسية رسائل حب موقع باربي صور عيون منتديات صور بنات تحميل الماسنجر مسجات حب مسجات ثيمات العاب للبنات فقط mobile9 برامج الماسنجر مكياج خلفيات تحميل العاب صور أنمي ترجمة نصوص صور حب العاب تلبيس تلبيس باربي العاب ماريو sitemap صور سيارات برامج جوال رسائل الجوال موقع باربي اكواد جافا العاب بنات فساتين صور تلوين اليوتيوب صور مقاطع صوتية مقاطع فيديو للتحميل صور حلوه موسوعة الصور دليل مواقع صور قلوب تحميل برامج windows live messenger 9 عيون
برامج جوال وموبايل Drivers برامج صوت وفيديو تحميل العاب جديدة برامج شبكات برامج حماية برامج إدارة النظام برامج تصميم وفوتوشوب نسخ اقراص و DVD برامج كمبيوتر الكمبيوتر كتب عربية تحميل كتب عربية برامج اطفال برامج بورتابل portable برامج عربية ومعربة برنامج هندسة معمارية برنامج ضغط وفك ضغط تعاريف الأجهزة وخدمات أخرى برامج المكتبة برامج منوعة موقع برامج العاب بنات العاب مسجات مرض منتديات صور صدام حسين العاب تلبيس العاب باربي العاب ترتيب غرف العاب طبخ العاب مغامرات العاب اكشن العاب ميك اب العاب مكياج العاب بنات منوعة hguhf hguhf fkhj tr'-1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138