WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA affiliated scientists are
reporting two new results about black holes today at the American Astronomical
Society meeting in San Diego.
One discovery involves a stellar-size black hole in our galaxy. Scientists
detected streams of gas that appear to be surfing on a wave of space as the
gas falls toward the black hole. This provides compelling evidence for an
exotic prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity: how a spinning
black hole can drag the fabric of space around with it, creating a choppy sea
of space that distorts all that passes through it on a descent into the black
hole.
The other discovery involves a super massive black hole in a galaxy more
than 170 million light years away. Scientists clocked three separate clumps of
hot iron gas whipping around the black hole at 20,000 miles per second, which
is more than 10 percent of light speed. This marks the first time scientists
could trace individual blobs of shredded matter on a complete journey around
such a black hole.
Dr. Jane Turner, jointly affiliated with NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland Baltimore County, led
the super massive black hole observation with the European Space Agency's XMM-
Newton satellite. She said if this black hole were placed in our Solar System,
it would appear like a dark abyss spread out nearly as wide as Mercury's
orbit. The three clumps of matter detected would be at about Jupiter's
distance. They orbit the black hole in a lightning-quick 27 hours; compared to
the 12 years it takes Jupiter to orbit the sun.
Turner's team's result provides a crucial measurement that has long been
missing from black hole studies: an orbital period. Knowing this, scientists
can measure black hole mass and other characteristics that have long eluded
them. The team observed a well-known galaxy named Markarian 766 in the
constellation Coma Berenices (Bernice's Hair).
Dr. Jon Miller of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in
Cambridge, Mass., led the spacetime-warp observation with NASA's Rossi X-ray
Timing Explorer, a workhorse now in its tenth year of operation. The black
hole is called GRS 1915+105. It is approximately 40,000 light years away in
the constellation Aquila, the Eagle.
Miller's team found evidence of how light loses energy as it climbs out of
a black hole's gravitational well. The team also found that changes in the
strength of the light signal were occurring periodically, as if a passing wave
were lifting the light and boosting the energy.
More information about the XMM-Newton black hole orbit result is available
on the Web at:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/universe/blackhole_race.html
More information about the Rossi Explorer spacetime-warp result is
available on the Web at:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/universe/blackhole_surfing.html
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
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SOURCE NASA
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Related links:
http://www.nasa.gov
CONTACT:
Dolores Beasley, Headquarters, Washington,
+1-202-358-1753, or Bill Steigerwald, Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, Md., +1-301-286-5017, both of NASA
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