Have I been slumbering? I this technique for actually displaying BHs new? This is my first glimpse at one nevermind two!
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
What an astounding photo!!!!!!!!!!
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081109.html
Not new at all. There must be hundreds of images of black hole systems. They are often easy to image because of the huge amounts of high energy radiation produced when material falls onto their surfaces.astrolabe wrote:Have I been slumbering? I this technique for actually displaying BHs new? This is my first glimpse at one nevermind two! :shock: What is the significance of them appearing white and at what location on the EM spectrum does the X-ray show this kind of saturation?
My interpretation of this image is that there are four jets. The lower (in the image) jets of each black hole are clearly seen extending to the left. The upper jets extend up and to the right, but since one is directly in front of the other, they only appear as one. If the image had higher spatial resolution, it would probably be obvious that there are four jets. It might also be apparent if doppler data can be extracted from one of the channels, but I don't know what the raw data is like.ta152h0 wrote:Hi ya'll. Is it possible this is actually a triumvirate ? I see three " tails" on the beast.:)
The Mach number is just the ratio of the velocity of an object in some medium and the speed of sound in that medium.starnut wrote:How is the Mach number calculated? I assumed (obviously incorrectly) that the Mach number is based on the atmospheric pressure on Earth!
The speed of sound in vacuum or even rarefied gas? How is that possible?Chris Peterson wrote:The Mach number is just the ratio of the velocity of an object in some medium and the speed of sound in that medium.starnut wrote:How is the Mach number calculated? I assumed (obviously incorrectly) that the Mach number is based on the atmospheric pressure on Earth!
This must be a misprint written by some science journalist who normally covers sports. 25000 light years! Maybe 25 light years. 25K light years is about the same distance between the Solar System and our Galactic Center.pjborg wrote:It seems to me that 25,000 light years apart is pretty far for two objects to be considered a binary system, even supermassive black holes. They must be really supermassive.
pj
The original paper concludes the two black holes are a gravitationally bound system with a separation of 7-8 kpc. In other words, this is a binary system with the components 25,000 ly apart.virtualdean wrote:This must be a misprint written by some science journalist who normally covers sports. 25000 light years! Maybe 25 light years. 25K light years is about the same distance between the Solar System and our Galactic Center.
Thanks for the link to the original paper. The operative word is in the title....A "PROTO" supermassive black hole binary.Chris Peterson wrote:The original paper concludes the two black holes are a gravitationally bound system with a separation of 7-8 kpc. In other words, this is a binary system with the components 25,000 ly apart.virtualdean wrote:This must be a misprint written by some science journalist who normally covers sports. 25000 light years! Maybe 25 light years. 25K light years is about the same distance between the Solar System and our Galactic Center.
The system was created by the merger of two galaxies, so it isn't unreasonable that the distances between the bound supermassive black holes is on a galactic scale.
Consider this analogy. Falling from about 35 meters in earth's gravity will accellerate an object to about 60 miles per hour. Ever felt the brakes on a car after a hard stop? They get hot from dissipating the energy of a 3000 pound car. Now consider millions of tons of matter falling in from billions of miles under the influence of a large black hole's gravity. That's a lot of energy!astrolabe wrote:Hello Chris,
It's unimaginable to me that so much power and concentrated energy can be produced by anything just by the acretion of surrounding matter. It wound appear to be not a slow process at all to effect such an enormous generation of power especially considering the distances involved. Extremely high level QM dynamics at it's best!
Thank you for your insights on this.