Black Hole Creates 'Eye' in Middle of Galactic Storm

The galaxy, called NGC 1097, is located 50 million light-years from Earth. It is spiral-shaped like our own Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars.

The "eye" at the center of the galaxy is caused by a monstrous black hole, which can't be seen but is surrounded by a ring of stars and rampant star birth.

In a new color-coded infrared view from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the area around the invisible black hole is blue and the ring of stars, white.

Black holes can't be seen because matter and light gets trapped in them. But they are identifiable by the gravitational interaction with their surroundings and the chaotic activity that goes on there.

The black hole is huge, about 100 million times the mass of our sun, and is feeding off gas and dust along with the occasional unlucky star.

Our Milky Way's central black hole is tame in comparison, with a measly mass of just a few million suns.

"The fate of this black hole and others like it is an active area of research," said George Helou, deputy director of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Some theories hold that the black hole might quiet down and eventually enter a more dormant state like our Milky Way black hole."

The ring around the black hole is bursting with new star formation. An inflow of material toward the central bar of the galaxy is causing the ring to light up with new stars.

"The ring itself is a fascinating object worthy of study because it is forming stars at a very high rate," said Kartik Sheth, an astronomer at NASA's Spitzer Science Center.

The galaxy's red spiral arms and the swirling spokes seen between the arms show dust heated by newborn stars. Older populations of stars scattered through the galaxy are blue. The fuzzy blue dot to the left, which appears to fit snuggly between the arms, is a companion galaxy.

"The companion galaxy that looks as if it's playing peek-a-boo through the larger galaxy could have plunged through, poking a hole," Helou said. "But we don't know this for sure. It could also just happen to be aligned with a gap in the arms."

This image was taken during Spitzer's "cold mission," which lasted more than five-and-a-half years.

The telescope ran out of coolant needed to chill its infrared instruments on May 15, 2009.

Two of its infrared channels will still work perfectly during the new "warm mission," which is expected to begin in a week or so, once the observatory has been recalibrated and warms to its new temperature of around 30 Kelvin (about minus 406 degrees Fahrenheit).

China delays launch of first space telescope to 2012

BEIJING, July 23, 2009 (Reuters) — China has delayed the launch of its first space telescope, designed to detect black holes, by two years to 2012 for cost reasons, the Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.
China has staked a good deal of national pride in its space program, which gained prominence when it put its first "taikonauts" in orbit in 2003.
Its space efforts have spurred rival India to expand its own space capabilities, while its successful downing of a defunct communications satellite in 2007 generated some concern among U.S. security analysts.
The 1 billion yuan ($146.4 million) telescope launch had been scheduled for 2010, but it was postponed for two years due to financial problems, Li Tipei, an academic with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the chief scientist of the program, told Xinhua without elaborating.
The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) will comprise three to four single telescopes equipped with hard X-ray detectors, instead of optical lenses, Li said. It is being developed by CAS, the Ministry of Science and Tsinghua University, the nation's premier engineering school.
The one-ton space telescope and its carrier satellite is expected to enter orbit approximately 500 km (300 miles) over the Earth's surface, and circle the Earth for four years.
China plans to land a vehicle on the moon in 2012.

Radioactive Material From Dying Supernova May Have Spawned Our Solar System

The team has found that radioactive nuclei found in the earliest meteorites, dating back billions of years, could have been delivered by a nearby dying giant star of six times the mass of the sun.

Dr Lugaro said the findings could change our current ideas on the origin of the solar system.

"We have known about the early presence of these radioactive nuclei in meteorites since the 1960s, but we do not know where they originated from. The presence of the radioactive nuclei has been previously linked to a nearby supernova explosion, but we are showing now that these nuclei are more compatible with an origin from the winds coming from a large dying star," Dr Lugaro said.

The conclusion was reached by combining stellar observations from telescopes with recently developed theoretical models reproduced on powerful computers of how stars evolve and which nuclear reaction occurs within their interiors.

"We need to know if the presence of radioactive nuclei in young planetary systems is a common or a special event in our galaxy because their presence affected the evolution of the first large rocks (the parent bodies of asteroids and meteorites) in the solar system. These are believed to be the source of much of earth's water, which is essential for life," Dr Lugaro said.

"Within one million years of the formation of the solar system the radioactive nuclei decayed inside the rocks where they were trapped, releasing high-energy photons, which caused the rocks to heat. Since much of earth's water is believed to have originated from these first rocks, the possibility of life on earth depends on their heating history and, in turn, on the presence of radioactive nuclei." Dr Lugaro said.

"What we need to do now is investigate the probability that a dying giant star could have actually been nearby our then young solar system and polluted it with radioactive nuclei. This will inform us on the place where the solar system was born, on the probability that other young planetary system also are polluted with radioactive nuclei, and, eventually, on the probability of having water on terrestrial planets in other planetary systems."

Dr Maria Lugaro (Monash University) pursued this research in collaboration with Amanda Karakas (Mount Stromlo Observatory), Mark van Raai (Utrecht University), and Spanish researchers Josep Maria Trigo-Rodriguez (CSIC and Instituto de Estudios Espaciales de Cataluña), Aníbal García-Hernández and Arturo Manchado, (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias), and Pedro García Lario (European Space Astronomy Center in Madrid).

The findings have been published in the journal Meteoritic & Planetary Science.

New pictures indicate object hit Jupiter

Scientists have found evidence that another object has bombarded Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the first impacts by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

Following up on a tip by an amateur astronomer that a new dark "scar" had suddenly appeared on Jupiter, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, using the Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, gathered evidence indicating an impact.

New infrared images show the likely impact point was near the south-polar region, with a visibly dark "scar" and bright upwelling particles in the upper atmosphere detected in near-infrared wavelengths, and a warming of the upper troposphere with possible extra emission from ammonia gas detected at mid-infrared wavelengths.

"We were extremely lucky to see Jupiter at exactly the right time, the right hour, and the right side of Jupiter to witness the event. We couldn't have planned it better," said Glenn Orton, a scientist at JPL.

Orton and his team of astronomers kicked into gear early in the morning and haven't stopped tracking the planet. They are downloading data now and are working to get additional observing time on this and other telescopes.

This image was taken at 1.65 microns, a wavelength sensitive to sunlight reflected from high in Jupiter's atmosphere, and it shows both the bright center of the scar (bottom left) and the debris to its northwest (upper left).

"It could be the impact of a comet, but we don't know for sure yet," said Orton. "It's been a whirlwind of a day, and this on the anniversary of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Apollo anniversaries is amazing."

Shoemaker-Levy 9 was a comet that had been seen to break into many pieces before the pieces hit Jupiter in 1994.

Leigh Fletcher at JPL, who worked with Orton during these latest observations, said, "Given the rarity of these events, it's extremely exciting to be involved in these observations. These are the most exciting observations I've seen in my five years of observing the outer planets!"

The observations were made possible in large measure by the extraordinary efforts of the Infrared Telescope Facility staff, including telescope operator William Golisch, who moved three instruments in and out of the field during the short time the scar was visible on the planet, providing the wide wavelength coverage.

The Century's Longest Solar Eclipse!!

Hey people.....yestrday there was the century's longest solar ecilipse....the next eclipse ov this duration would occur in 2132....!!!!

Here are some pics: