Jet From Supermassive Black Hole Seen Blasting Neighboring Galaxy

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn…66.html

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“What we’ve identified is an act of violence by a black hole, with an unfortunate nearby galaxy in the line of fire,” said Dan Evans, the study leader at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. He said any planets orbiting the stars of the smaller galaxy would be dramatically affected, and any life forms would likely die as the jet’s radiation transformed the planets’ atmosphere.

Black holes are generally thought of as mysterious cosmic phenomena that swallow matter, but the supermassive ones that occur at the center of many — possibly all — galaxies also set loose tremendous bursts of energy as matter swirls around the disk of material that circles the black hole but does not make it in.

That energy, often in the form of highly charged gamma rays and X-rays, shoots out in powerful jets that can be millions of light-years long and 1,000 light-years wide.

Scientists are just beginning to understand these jets, which not only transform matter in their path but also help produce “stellar nurseries,” where new stars are formed.

Evans’s collaborator, Martin Hardcastle of the University of Hertfordshire in England, said the collision they have identified began no more than 1 million years ago and could continue for 10 million to 100 million more years. Hardcastle called the collision a great opportunity to learn more about the jets.

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“Stellar nurseries” that last millions of years… Wow can you say “big bang?”

also… looking at the illustration above… it kind of answers my old question, “How could a possible ‘alignment’ with a black hole as far away as the center of our galaxy possibly affect US?” At news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scien…7148671.stm it says, “Jets can race out at close to the speed of light and can travel vast distances. The jet in 3C321 was about 1,000 light-years across and might have travelled one or two million light-years from its origin.”

I wonder what it’s like for the planetary inhabitants whose atmospheres transform.. if we’re talking about matter transforming, then maybe it isn’t just the atmosphere that changes… i would think that the water.. the ground… the inhabitants themselves would transform… I don’t know what that feels like but I hope it’s fucking dope and not cataclysmic. Cuz what if 2012 turned out to be something like this for OUR galaxy? In that case I certainly HOPE the experience is more of an evolutionary crecendo than the bummer of a thousand lifetimes… I better not throw up yarn.

1 Comment

• 
  SeventhSwami October 15, 2008 at 10:49 pm

  5 Comments add a comment

  Aaron
  24 Tue, December 18, 2007 – 10:18 AM
  Hmm… Thats gonna leave a mark. Anybody have some SPF45^8 Sunscreen?

  Evinrude
  409 Tue, December 18, 2007 – 11:21 AM

  Pencils chasing orange peels around, carpet monsters masturbating to piles of used computer monitors, sold-out concerts full of coffee beans going nuts to the musical expressions of bands of pygmies. Picture it, man…

  Swami
  263 Tue, December 18, 2007 – 11:39 AM
  yeah that’s exactly what i’m picturing! how did you know?

  3r@in
  185 Fri, December 28, 2007 – 11:24 AM
  how do u know that’s not what’s happening now?

  >>>~sheiVAH~<<<
  444 Wed, January 30, 2008 – 7:08 AM
  Itza Holographic Universe * Multi~Verse ….
  …. exactly …