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APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 3:59 am
by APOD Robot
M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet
Explanation: In spiral
galaxies, majestic
winding arms of young stars, gas, and dust rotate in a flat disk around a bulging galactic nucleus. But
elliptical galaxies seem to be simpler. Lacking gas and dust to form new stars, their randomly swarming older stars, give them an ellipsoidal (egg-like) shape. Still, elliptical galaxies can be very large. Centered in
this telescopic view and over 120,000 light-years in diameter, larger than our own Milky Way,
elliptical galaxy M87 (NGC 4486) is the dominant galaxy of the
Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Some 50 million light-years away,
M87 is likely home to a supermassive
black hole responsible for a high-energy jet of particles emerging from the giant galaxy's central region. In this well-processed image, M87's jet is near the one o'clock position. Other galaxies are also in the field of view, including large Virgo Cluster ellipticals
NGC 4478 right of center and
NGC 4476 near the right edge.
[/b]
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 4:09 am
by JuanAustin
What wuld it be like if we were in an elliptical galaxy?
Would the stars be evenly distributed from one horizon to another?
Would they lend themselves to be characterized as constellations?
Is there as much debris and gas in an elliptical as there is in a spiral?
Is there as much creation of new stars or are they all generally the same age?
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 4:19 am
by neufer
http://seds.org/messier/more/m087_nrao.html wrote:
<<Researchers using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope have imaged a "spectacular and complex structure" in giant elliptical galaxy M87, the central galaxy of the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. Their work both resolves a decades-old observational mystery and revises current theories about the origin of X-ray emission coming from gas surrounding the galaxy.
![Image](http://seds.org/messier/Pics/More/m87b_nrao.jpg)
This new VLA image shows the "central engine", or massive central object, of the galaxy M87, spewing out jets of subatomic particles at nearly the speed of light. The VLA image is the first to show detail of a larger structure that originally was detected by radio astronomers more than a half-century ago. Analysis of the new image indicates that astronomers will have to revise their ideas about the physics of what causes X-ray emission in the cores of many galaxy clusters.>>
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 4:39 am
by Beyond
neufer; your nice picture does look like it has at least 2 yellow -somethings- living in it. Talk about going Green!
It took me a little while to see the gas jet from the center of M87. I had to put my monitor up to 150% and wear 2x glasses before it showed up.
Its nice that there are a lot of space events that are bigger and easier to see.
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 4:53 am
by ngc1535
Hi Beyond,
I agree. The enlarged cropped view should make it a bit easier:
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/mlsc/m87crop.jpg
(this should probably be where the URL points to when the overview image is clicked).
Adam Block
http://SkyCenter.arizona.edu
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 12:42 pm
by Beyond
Hey Adam
WOW! the picture you provided actually has a gas jet showing!!
On the Apod one all i could see was a little yellow straight line at 1 o'clock that barely went beyond the yellow center.
I score that ---- Apod= 1/2..................Adam=1
Adam WINS!! YEA-RAH-RAH--HOORAY!!!!
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 1:00 pm
by owlice
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 1:45 pm
by Hofi
Really nice shot!
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 2:26 pm
by biddie67
APOD Robot wrote:((url=
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100520.html))
Explanation: In spiral galaxies, majestic winding arms of young stars, gas, and dust rotate in a flat disk around a bulging galactic nucleus. But elliptical galaxies seem to be simpler. Lacking gas and dust to form new stars, their randomly swarming older stars, give them an ellipsoidal (egg-like) shape.
I don't understand why a spiral galaxy would characteristically be different from an elliptical galaxy based upon the apparent source of material to form new stars.
How does a predominance of young stars keep the galaxy's rotational pattern tighter?
Does the ellipsoidal galaxy also lose its flat disk form?
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 2:29 pm
by Beyond
Owlice; thanks for the extra pictures from Adam. You're a real nice "HOOT".
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 2:35 pm
by Chris Peterson
biddie67 wrote:How does a predominance of young stars keep the galaxy's rotational pattern tighter?
It's the other way around. Spiral arms create density waves that produce regions of new star formation. Without the spirals, material is much more uniformly distributed.
Does the ellipsoidal galaxy also lose its flat disk form?
Yes.
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 2:36 pm
by drollere
what is the diffuse cloud of point light sources around the M87 galaxy? are they very faint stars in our galaxy whose luminance has been boosted by processing the contrast of the M87 image and the area around it? if not, at the virgo distance they would have to be dwarf galaxies or massive globular clusters (or both). their density appears to be remarkably high.
the radio image posted by neufer appears uncannily like smoke swirling in the air or a drop of dye dissolving in water. and a lot of the images i've seen of hydrogen and dust "star nurseries", such as the "pillars of creation", appear to be an opaque material of a heavy density swirling in a transparent liquid of lighter density. the point being that the peculiar shapes of smoke in air or oil in medium are the signature of a visible material diffusing into an invisible medium. has anyone studied the physical shape of large and diffuse matter distributions, from hydrogen and dust "star nurseries" to galaxy wide ejecta, from the perspective of the kinds of shapes that can be explained by gravity acting on particle clouds in a pure vacuum, as opposed to the shapes that result from the mixture of two different media? is it possible that these are fingerprints of the invisible shaping effect of dark matter?
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 2:55 pm
by drollere
btw, here's my best guess of the relationship between the radio and visual images, conflating the radio images posted here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M87_V ... ronomy.jpg
http://seds.org/messier/more/m087_nrao.html
and this is just a guess. but it's astonishing how freely astronomical images are utilized without any mention of scale, for example the width of the image in light years, at the distance of the primary object. it's like an art history lecture where you don't know if you're looking at a ceiling fresco, a miniature, or the painting on the head of a pin.
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 3:23 pm
by quigley
I was going to ask why there was only one jet in M87 until I saw the VLA image. That answered my question. There ARE two jets.
Thanks for posting the detailed image, Neufer.
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 4:22 pm
by Beyond
Hi Quigley;
You must still be "down under". Its harder to see there's two from that position. You have to change your viewing angle a bit. G'Day Mate.
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 6:55 pm
by ngc1535
drollere wrote:what is the diffuse cloud of point light sources around the M87 galaxy? are they very faint stars in our galaxy whose luminance has been boosted by processing the contrast of the M87 image and the area around it? if not, at the virgo distance they would have to be dwarf galaxies or massive globular clusters (or both). their density appears to be remarkably high.
This isn't a selective enhancement that has been "boosted." It is brighter around the galaxy due to its halo. Within halos of galaxies you find GLOBULAR CLUSTERS! At 50 million light years away, the globular clusters surrounding M87 appear like a swarm of stars surrounding the galaxy. The density is remarkably high as you note. M87 is remarkably massive. On the order of trillions of stars.
Adam
Elliptical Argument with Jet
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 7:39 pm
by neufer
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 1:19 am
by Rick Wingrove
There is a very faint streak passing diagonally (upper left to lower right) just above NGC4478. Probably a satellite or an asteroid but if it's something new I want to name it Vogon.
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 2:19 am
by petsie
Hi folks,
I'm just a normal guy without any specific astrophysical knowledge but with a fairly interest in cosmology.
My question is: how can such a very huge mass have been concentrated like in the black hole in the center of M87? Is it just the time since big bang which allowed the weakest of the known four forces to collect this mass from dozens or hundreds galaxies, each having a "moderate" black hole in their centers?
If I understood some popular texts about cosmology well, the universe is considered to be 'flat' due to inflation. 'Flat' is understood by me as: Take a small part of the universe (some megaparsecs^3 (or how many dimensions we need)) get the mean of the physical circumstances and you've got a picture of the universe.
A few billions of sun masses concentrated in one stellar object seem to be a huge variance. And I'm a bit afraid of an answer like "Yes, over the time some galaxies melted and their black holes did so similarly", because the universe would be a bit boring, wouldn't it? It would be more exciting, if some very very small differences short time after big bang would have been blown up by inflation so that matter had no other choice than to concentrate locally in such a remarkable amount.
Just to outline my question: Is there a contradiction "flat universe" <-> a black hole past comprehension?
P.S.: It is very impressive that the weak gravitation (together with conservation of angular momentum and magnetic induction) accelerates matter to ultra-high velocities ("The jet of matter emerging from the core extends at least 5000 light-years from the nucleus of Messier 87 and is made up of matter ejected from the galaxy, most likely by a supermassive black hole. In pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1999, the motion of Messier 87's jet was measured at four to six times the speed of light. This motion is believed by some to be a visual result of the relativistic velocity of the jet [of course (comment by me)], and not true superluminal motion. However, detection of such motion supports the theory that quasars, BL Lac objects and radio galaxies may all be the same phenomenon, known as active galaxies, viewed from different perspectives.[47][48]", from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_87)
Re: Elliptical Argument with Jet
Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 2:48 am
by petsie
@neufer: this video just shows how we waste energy as if a finite planet would have ininite resources. But I don't see the connection between the effects due to heat and those due to gravity. (??)
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 3:43 am
by neufer
petsie wrote:Hi folks,
My question is: how can such a very huge mass have been concentrated like in the black hole in the center of M87? Is it just the time since big bang which allowed the weakest of the known four forces to collect this mass from dozens or hundreds galaxies, each having a "moderate" black hole in their centers?
Hi petsie, Welcome to the Asterisk. I'll try to take a stab at answering your questions.
All those distant quasars are supposedly powered by massive gluttonous black holes. The most distant known quasar, CFHQS J2329-0301, is at z = 6.43 when the universe was only 680 million years old. So, presumably, massive black hole developed quite early and grew rapidly by eating up everything in sight.
Perhaps it was the higher densities of the early universe that allowed massive black holes to form. Fortunately, in today's tenuous universe these remnant massive black holes go hungry most of the time.
petsie wrote: If I understood some popular texts about cosmology well, the universe is considered to be 'flat' due to inflation. 'Flat' is understood by me as: Take a small part of the universe (some megaparsecs^3 (or how many dimensions we need)) get the mean of the physical circumstances and you've got a picture of the universe.
I would define that more as being "homogeneous" (another consequence of inflation).
'Flat' as understood by me is:
1) Euclidean geometry rules and
2) Don't expect to look in a powerful telescope and observe the back of your head out there somewhere.
petsie wrote: A few billions of sun masses concentrated in one stellar object seem to be a huge variance. And I'm a bit afraid of an answer like "Yes, over the time some galaxies melted and their black holes did so similarly", because the universe would be a bit boring, wouldn't it? It would be more exciting, if some very very small differences short time after big bang would have been blown up by inflation so that matter had no other choice than to concentrate locally in such a remarkable amount.
Just to outline my question: Is there a contradiction "flat universe" <-> a black hole past comprehension?
No quite sure I understand?
There may be a contradiction in "homogeneous universe" <-> massive black holes."
But then the universe isn't totally "homogeneous" is it:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050925.html
petsie wrote:P.S.: It is very impressive that the weak gravitation (together with conservation of angular momentum and magnetic induction) accelerates matter to ultra-high velocities ("The jet of matter emerging from the core extends at least 5000 light-years from the nucleus of Messier 87 and is made up of matter ejected from the galaxy, most likely by a supermassive black hole. In pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1999, the motion of Messier 87's jet was measured at four to six times the speed of light. This motion is believed by some to be a visual result of the relativistic velocity of the jet [of course (comment by me)], and not true superluminal motion. However, detection of such motion supports the theory that quasars, BL Lac objects and radio galaxies may all be the same phenomenon, known as active galaxies, viewed from different perspectives.", from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_87)
The gravitational force may be weak but
1) it is long range and
2) it can't be canceled out like electric forces (except perhaps by dark energy).
This makes the collective gravitational force stronger than any other force.
Re: Elliptical Argument with Jet
Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 3:46 am
by neufer
petsie wrote:@neufer: this video just shows how we waste energy as if a finite planet would have ininite resources. But I don't see the connection between the effects due to heat and those due to gravity. (??)
That probably just proves that you are more sane than I am, petsie.
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 4:03 am
by Doum
Hi all,
Looking at these relativistic jets from giant black hole and their light years distance travel from their home galaxies ( in some case ) i start to wonder.
Can these jets be use to more define the gravity effect of dark matter that seem to surround many galaxies. I mean can dark matter deflect the path of these giant jets. Also, can these relativitic particles from the jets have sometime a collision with the unknown particle (theory for now) of dark matter ( if we know what the effect of such a collision will be, then i suppose we can detect it). I mean can we use these jets as tool to better define what dark matter is. ( These jets look like a natural giant particle accelerator, so why not use them). Or may be it already have been done and i am unaware of it. Please enlight me. It's just a tought.
![Question :?:](./images/smilies/icon_question.gif)
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 4:15 am
by Chris Peterson
petsie wrote:P.S.: It is very impressive that the weak gravitation (together with conservation of angular momentum and magnetic induction) accelerates matter to ultra-high velocities...
Gravity isn't weak. It is just weak compared with the other fundamental forces. The energies involved in the gravitational potential around a massive object are consistent with the energies involved in the creation of jets. Maybe a better way of thinking about it would be to imagine what those jets would be like if stronger forces were somehow powering them!
Re: APOD: M87: Elliptical Galaxy with Jet (2010 May 20)
Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 4:33 am
by neufer
Doum wrote:Looking at these relativistic jets from giant black hole and their light years distance travel from their home galaxies ( in some case ) i start to wonder. Can these jets be use to more define the gravity effect of dark matter that seem to surround many galaxies. I mean can dark matter deflect the path of these giant jets.
Gravitational escape velocities from galaxies are on the order of 1,000 km/s ...hardly relativistic.
The main force twisting these relativistic jets around must certainly be magnetic fields generated by regular matter.
Doum wrote:Also, can these relativistic particles from the jets have sometime a collision with the unknown particle (theory for now) of dark matter ( if we know what the effect of such a collision will be, then i suppose we can detect it). I mean can we use these jets as tool to better define what dark matter is. ( These jets look like a natural giant particle accelerator, so why not use them). Or may be it already have been done and i am unaware of it. Please enlighten me. It's just a thought.
![Question :?:](./images/smilies/icon_question.gif)
Neutrinos pass through the earth like it wasn't there.
Why would dark matter be any more interactive?