BIGDAN Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-13783877 Astronomers have spied a star's swan song as it is shredded by a black hole. Researchers suspect that the star wandered too close to the black hole and got sucked in by the huge gravitational forces. The star's final moments sent a flash of radiation hurtling towards Earth. The energy burst is still visible by telescope more than two-and-a-half months later, the researchers report in the journal Science. The Swift spacecraft constantly scans the skies for bursts of radiation, notifying astronomers when it locates a potential flare. These bursts usually indicate the implosion of an aging star, which produces a single, quick blast of energy. But this event, first spotted on 28 March 2011 and designated Sw 1644+57, does not have the marks of an imploding sun. What intrigued the researchers about this gamma ray burst is that it flared up four times over a period of four hours. Astrophysicist Dr Andrew Levan from the University of Warwick, and his colleagues suspected that they were looking at a very different sort of galactic event; one where a passing star got sucked into a black hole. The energy bursts matched nicely with what you might expect when you "throw a star into a black hole", Dr Levan told BBC News. Gasless centres Black holes are thought to reside at the centres of most major galaxies. Some black holes are surrounded by matter in the form of gas; light is emitted when the gas is dragged into the hole. However, the centres of most galaxies are devoid of gas and so are invisible from Earth. These black holes only become visible when an object such as a star is pulled in. If this happens, the star becomes elongated, first spreading out to form a "banana shape" before its inner edge - orbiting faster than the outer edge - pulls the star into a disc-shape that wraps itself around the hole. As material drops into the black hole it becomes compressed and releases radiation that is usually visible from Earth for a month or so. Events like these, termed mini-quasars, are incredibly rare - researchers expect one every hundred million years in any one galaxy. The researchers used some of most powerful ground-based and space-based observatories - the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Gemini and Keck Telescopes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slave to zep Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 the universe is an amazing place indeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGDAN Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 the universe is an amazing place indeed. Your not wrong there Slave, do you know how hard it was for me to get that photo? Kind Regards, Danny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slave to zep Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Your not wrong there Slave, do you know how hard it was for me to get that photo? Kind Regards, Danny you must have some camera! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGDAN Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 you must have some camera! Kodak Digital with Telephoto lens. Kind Regards, Danny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f2walsh Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Awesome picture!!! Thanks Dan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spidersandsnakes Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 (edited) Just goes to show how we....and maybe even God.....are all so PUNY!!!!:) Edited June 17, 2011 by spidersandsnakes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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