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Black hole blows huge gas bubble

dpaterso

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10555633.stm
A small black hole has been observed blowing a vast bubble of hot gas 1,000 light-years across.

The gas is expanding because it is being heated by powerful particle "jets" being released by the black hole.

The observations were made by the Very Large Telescope in Chile and Nasa's Chandra space observatory.

Astronomers have unveiled the findings in the latest edition of Nature journal.

As if it's not problem enough to factor in having your space fleet avoid black holes, they could be shooting at you while you alter course! (Or indeed, as you intentionally plot a course to approach them, intending to use their gravity well to jump to FTL.)

-Derek
 

efkelley

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Well that blows.

HA! See what I did there? Hahahaheheheheee... <crickets>

Wait, no one?

Sigh.
 

CACTUSWENDY

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Hum...would that be considered a belch or a fart? (ops....did I say that out loud?) :tongue

This info should make for some good stories.
 

defyalllogic

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The observations were made by the Very Large Telescope in Chile and Nasa's Chandra space observatory.

is that the technical name?
 

Sophia

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It is! There's also the VSA (Very Small Array), the VLA (Very Large Array) and the E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope). :)
 

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Lhun

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I guess this finally kills Hawking's pet idea that black holes destroy information.
Nothing to do with that. Black holes ejecting particle jets is nothing new or special, what's rare about this case is that there's actually something there for the polar jets to hit.
The jets are the result of matter heating up as it spirals inwards to the black hole, they're not the result of a black hole as such, similar jets can be ejected from neutron stars, or even from stellar accretion discs. Hawking radiation is a completely different matter.
 

Bartholomew

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Nothing to do with that. Black holes ejecting particle jets is nothing new or special, what's rare about this case is that there's actually something there for the polar jets to hit.
The jets are the result of matter heating up as it spirals inwards to the black hole, they're not the result of a black hole as such, similar jets can be ejected from neutron stars, or even from stellar accretion discs. Hawking radiation is a completely different matter.

Oh! I thought it was physically coming out of the black hole. And if something is coming out of it, then it would be reasonable on my ignorant behalf to assume that it was a different configuration of what had gone in. :)