| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
NuSTAR Puts New Spin On Supermassive Black Holes
This artist’s concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Supermassive black holes are enormously dense objects buried at the hearts of galaxies. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Checking out the spin rate on a supermassive black hole is a great way for astronomers to test Einstein’s theory under extreme conditions – and take a close look at how intense gravity distorts the fabric of space-time. Now, image a monster… one that has a mass of about 2 million times that of our Sun, measures 2 million miles in diameter and rotating so fast that it’s nearly breaking the speed of light. A fantasy? Not hardly. It’s a supermassive black hole located at the center of spiral galaxy NGC 1365 – and it is about to teach us a whole lot more about how black holes and galaxies mature. (…)
Read the rest of NuSTAR Puts New Spin On Supermassive Black Holes (634 words)
© tammy for Universe Today, 2013. |
Permalink |
No comment |
Post tags: Black Hole Spin, NGC 1365, NuSTAR, supermassive black holes, XMM-Newton
Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
2013-02-27 15:16:28
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/100336/nustar-puts-new-spin-on-supermassive-black-holes/
Source:
