We’ve all felt the pressure that builds up in our stomach after a can of carbonated cola or a particularly filling meal, and no matter how polite of a person you are, you no doubt let a nice healthy burp fly every now and then. As it turns out, black holes have a similar habit, and astronomers have just captured photo evidence of one of the universe’s most destructive entities burping not once, but twice in quick succession.
Scientists using some of mankind’s most powerful space observation tools — the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes — have observed the black hole at the center of a far-off galaxy spewing hot gas in two separate events. The galaxy, called SDSS J1354+1327 (catchy name, huh?) is some 800 million light-years from Earth, but that’s still close enough for astronomers to detect its foul behavior.
“Black holes are voracious eaters, but it also turns out they don’t have very good table manners,” Comerford said. “We know a lot of examples of black holes with single burps emanating out, but we discovered a galaxy with a supermassive black hole that has not one but two burps.”
The “burps” appear as colorful explosions of gas emitting from the center of the galaxy. In the clearest photo of the event, the beginning of a massive burp is seen shooting out of the upper left of the black hole, while the remnants of an older burp can be spotted still dissipating below it. While these two events are thought to have happened some 100,000 years apart, that’s actually an incredibly short period of time when we’re talking about black hole activity. – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [divider][/divider]We’re about to see — for the very first time — the event horizon of a black hole, proving beyond any last vestige of doubt that Einstein’s interstellar monsters are real. And here’s what it will look like.
While astronomers have long seen the fallout of the presence of black holes on the stars and gas clouds around them, none have ever actually stared directly into its abyss.
But they’re hoping to, soon.
What the @ehtelescope expects to find in 2018 – a silhouette in the glow of radiation at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Simulation by 2017 Jansky Fellow Kazunori Akiyama. pic.twitter.com/H0Nz6RRjj9
— NRAO (@TheNRAO) December 15, 2017