Scientists Detect Massive Space Explosion

From: Moderate Mammal (BunnERabbit_at_verizon.hutch.net)
Date: 01/08/05 

Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 07:35:46 GMT

And you thought Tidal Waves of the terrestrial variety were scary. 

--
Keith
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1278087.htm
Scientists detect massive space explosion
US scientists have detected the largest explosion ever observed, which
saw a mass equivalent to about 300 suns sucked into a black hole.
"The eruption, which has lasted for more than 100 million years, has
generated energy equivalent to hundreds of millions of gamma-ray
bursts," NASA said in a statement.
The discovery was made by NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory
which is controlled from a base in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The huge eruption was seen in a Chandra image of the hot, X-ray
emitting gas of a galaxy cluster called MS 0735.6+7421, the agency
said. The galaxy is about 2.6 billion light years away. 
Scientists believe that this black hole is a relatively recent
phenomena. 
This event was caused by gravitational energy release, as enormous
amounts of matter fell toward a black hole. 
Most of the matter was swallowed, but some of it was violently ejected
before being captured by the black hole. 
"I was stunned to find that a mass of about 300 million suns was
swallowed," said Brian McNamara of Ohio University, lead author of a
study on the discovery published in the latest issue of Nature. 
The energy released shows the black hole in MS 0735 has grown
dramatically during this eruption. Previous studies suggest other
large black holes have grown very little in the recent past, and that
only smaller black holes are still growing quickly. 
"This new result is as surprising as it is exciting," said co-author
Paul Nulsen of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in
Cambridge. 
"This black hole is feasting, when it should be fasting." 
Gas is being pushed away from the black hole at supersonic speeds over
a distance of about a million light years, said the scientists. 
The mass of the displaced gas equals about a trillion suns, more than
the mass of all the stars in the Milky Way. 
"Until now we had no idea this black hole was gorging itself," said
Michael Wise of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Cambridge. 
"The discovery of this eruption shows X-ray telescopes are necessary
to understand some of the most violent events in the universe." 
- AFP
  
_____ 
"Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death
of a sparrow in the corner of a barn." -Anouk Aimee, French Actor  
_____
"Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny", Aeschylus (525BC-456BC),
Agamemnon
_____
"I wear no Burka." - Mother Nature
    
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