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Mostly Mute Monday: The Largest Eruption In The Known Universe (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]
“The world exploded into billions of atoms, and when it rearranged itself, it may have looked the same, but really, it was a Whole New World.” –Claire LaZebnik
At the center of almost every galaxy is a supermassive black hole (SMBH); at the center of almost every cluster is a supermassive galaxy with some of the largest SMBHs in the Universe. And every once in a while, a galactocentric black hole will become active, emitting tremendous amounts of radiation out into the Universe as it devours matter.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Ohio U./B.McNamara, via http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/ms0735/ and http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/ms0735/.
This radiation can cut across the spectrum, from the X-ray down to the radio, and yet, in one case, the most striking thing of all is that there’s a black hole that appears to have been active for hundreds of millions of years, something unheard of!
Image credit: NRAO/VLA, and L. Birzan and team (Ohio University), via http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0651e/.
What’s causing this monstrosity at the heart of MS 0735.6+7421? Come find out on Mostly Mute Monday.
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2015/05/25/mostly-mute-monday-the-largest-eruption-in-the-known-universe-synopsis/
