New black hole found
It's a bouncing baby ... black hole, according to astronomers
captivated by the youngest such nearby phenom, just 30 years old, based
on data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, NASA said Monday.
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Newly discovered gamma-ray bubbles as
they extend 50,000 light-years, or roughly half of the Milky
Way’s diameter. AFP |
The relatively spanking new black hole offers a rare chance to watch
one develop from infancy, the authors said in a report to appear in the
New Astronomy journal.
Thought to be the youngest black hole in our cosmic "neighborhood,"
it could help scientists better understand how huge stars explode, which
ones leave behind black holes or neutron stars, and how many black holes
there may be in our galaxy and others.
"If our interpretation is correct, this is the nearest example where
the birth of a black hole has been observed," said Daniel Patnaude of
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, who led the study.
Astronomers believe the black hole is a remnant of SN 1979C, a
supernova in the galaxy M100 approximately 50 million light-years from
Earth.
"It's very rewarding to see how the commitment of some of the most
advanced telescopes in space, like Chandra, can help complete the
story," said Jon Morse, head of the Astrophysics Division at NASA's
Science Mission Directorate.
Black holes are massive phenomena with a gravitational force so
strong that nothing, not even light, can escape them; they are caused by
the death of a giant star exploding into a supernova. AFP
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