Starship Asterisk*

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.

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.>>

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.

biddie67 wrote:How does a predominance of young stars keep the galaxy's rotational pattern tighter?

Does the ellipsoidal galaxy also lose its flat disk form?

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.

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?

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.

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?

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)

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. (??)

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...

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.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=galaxies-mysterious-magne wrote:

GALACTIC COMPASS: A new study clarifies how quickly galaxies built up giant magnetic fields that are still present in today's cosmic denizens such as spiral galaxy M51, shown here in a Hubble Space Telescope image overlaid by radio data documenting its magnetic field.

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.