Black hole jet seen flaring wildly

[qubit]

NASA's busy Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has captured rare data of a flaring black hole releasing a blazing jet.

The black hole, called GX 339-4, lies more than 20,000 light-years away, near the center of our galaxy, and has a mass at least six times that of the sun.

It's orbited by a companion star that feeds it - and, while most of the material from the companion star is pulled into the black hole, some is blasted out as a jet at nearly the speed of light.

"Imagine what it would be like if our sun were to undergo sudden, random bursts, becoming three times brighter in a matter of hours, and then fading back again. That's the kind of fury we observed in this jet," says Poshak Gandhi, a scientist with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

"With WISE's infrared vision, we were able to zoom in on the inner regions near the base of the stellar-mass black hole's jet for the first time and the physics of jets in action."

NEOWISE, the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission, captured images of the same patch of sky over time, allowing the team to zoom in on the very compact region around the base of the jet streaming from the black hole.

This, they say, is equivalent to observing something the width of a dime, as far away as the sun.

The results surprised the team, showing huge and erratic fluctuations in the jet activity on timescales ranging from 11 seconds to a few hours. In addition, the size of the jet's base varies by afactor of 10 or more.

"If you think of the black hole's jet as a firehose, then it's as if we've discovered the flow is intermittent and the hose itself is varying wildly in size," Poshak said.

The new data also allowed astronomers to make the best measurements yet of the black hole's magnetic field, which is 30,000 times more powerful than the one generated by Earth at its surface.

The article needs to clarify the bit about the magnetic field from the black hole - black holes don't have a magnetic field, so it can only come from the material surrounding it.

Still, a fascinating observation nonetheless.

TG Daily (http://www.tgdaily.com/space-features/58592-black-hole-jet-seen-flaring-wildly)

[micropage7]

wow...
let i imagine it first

[Fatal]

This is great stuff I will look more into this. I have always been fascinated by black holes.

[Easy Rhino]

oh, I thought a jet had exited a black hole from another dimension. sadly disappointed.

[qubit]

This is great stuff I will look more into this. I have always been fascinated by black holes.

Yes, me too. They're the weirdest objects in the universe.

I don't believe that the singularity is a point of infinite density and gravity though. I reckon it simply looks that way because General Relativity breaks down at that point ie the theory is incomplete.

[bucketface]

Yes, me too. They're the weirdest objects in the universe.

I don't believe that the singularity is a point of infinite density and gravity though. I reckon it simply looks that way because General Relativity breaks down at that point ie the theory is incomplete.

well the only thing that they can really say for certain is that black holes appear to have an immense gravitational field. any theories thay may have, other than that are just theories.
anyway they may just be gigantic, super dense objects that dont reflect light. who knows. it's rather difficult to determine the exact nature of things when they a hundres/thousands/millions of lightyears away.

[RejZoR]

This is great stuff I will look more into this. I have always been fascinated by black holes.

Me too. Mostly because no one can really tell what happens inside them because as far as our knowledge goes, black holes only go one way. So no one can really tell how it's like inside it :D

[Fatal]

It's great that technology is getting better ever day. Is this the only Black Hole in our galaxy, well that they know of? I spoke to my little bro today he told me they found another planet orbiting two stars. Things have sure changed since I was a kid.

[qubit]

well the only thing that they can really say for certain is that black holes appear to have an immense gravitational field. any theories thay may have, other than that are just theories.
anyway they may just be gigantic, super dense objects that dont reflect light. who knows. it's rather difficult to determine the exact nature of things when they a hundres/thousands/millions of lightyears away.

You appear to have a common misconseption of the word "theory". In scientific language, a theory has good solid evidence to back it up, it's not just someone's idea. A theory without evidence is called a hypothesis. Therefore, dismissing something as "just a theory" is just plain wrong.

Believe me, black holes do exist. They don't just not reflect light, but suck it in. All of it, along with everything else. Gravity at the event horizon is so strong, that you'd have to be going faster than light to escape, which is impossible. What happens at the singularity? No one knows. This is the point at which General Relativity breaks down and we may never know what goes on there.

Here's an excellent resource for learning everything about black holes: www.universetoday.com/46443/black-hole It's fascinating. Enjoy. :toast:

[Easy Rhino]

the real question is if we put themailman next to a black hole would he absorb all of its energy?

[Bow]

the real question is if we put themailman next to a black hole would he absorb all of its energy?

Could themailman suck in a Black Hole???

[qubit]

Could themailman suck in a Black Hole???

Trouble with that, is I think if you really pushed mailman, he could implode the whole universe. That would make posting on TPU difficult. :shadedshu

[AphexDreamer]

Yes, me too. They're the weirdest objects in the universe.

I don't believe that the singularity is a point of infinite density and gravity though. I reckon it simply looks that way because General Relativity breaks down at that point ie the theory is incomplete.

The rest simply leaks out into other non-spatial dimension.

I know, I've been there.

[ShogoXT]

oh, I thought a jet had exited a black hole from another dimension. sadly disappointed.

I never ever believed that for a second. Other theories as well such as dark matter and dark energy I am also extremely skeptical of as well because they have zero evidence. I mean there could be other variables like say a ton of black holes in the void between galaxies? Supermassive blackholes maybe too.

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

'Sucks' to live on a planet in that system

[Easy Rhino]

I never ever believed that for a second. Other theories as well such as dark matter and dark energy I am also extremely skeptical of as well because they have zero evidence. I mean there could be other variables like say a ton of black holes in the void between galaxies? Supermassive blackholes maybe too.

you thought i was being serious?

[Volkszorn88]

When he's not being serious, he's drinking Dos Equis.

[ShogoXT]

you thought i was being serious?

Just commenting on some of the theories ive seen proposed by scientists. Wasnt saying about you.

[aubsxc]

You appear to have a common misconseption of the word "theory". In scientific language, a theory has good solid evidence to back it up, it's not just someone's idea. A theory without evidence is called a hypothesis. Therefore, dismissing something as "just a theory" is just plain wrong.

Believe me, black holes do exist. They don't just not reflect light, but suck it in. All of it, along with everything else. Gravity at the event horizon is so strong, that you'd have to be going faster than light to escape, which is impossible. What happens at the singularity? No one knows. This is the point at which General Relativity breaks down and we may never know what goes on there.

Here's an excellent resource for learning everything about black holes: www.universetoday.com/46443/black-hole It's fascinating. Enjoy. :toast:

Very well stated. It is difficult to condense the field of cosmology into a few succient paragraphs, and without getting into the intricate math that physicists use to describe their models of reality. Black holes represent a condition where the space-time continuum is essentially broken or punctured, and gravity, which is the physical manifestation of the curvature of space-time described by Einstein's field equations, is so large, that we have not yet been able to concieve of the physics to describe these conditions. Black holes are immensely important to the universe, to the existence of galaxies, and to our existence. In fact, some cosmologists have theorized that our universe itself (the reality we percieve around us), is the ejaculate of the matter that was/is being sucked into a supermassive black hole that exists in a dimension that is not apparent to us. If you are an interested layman like me check out the TV series Wonders of the Universe (http://www.amazon.com/Wonders-Universe-Blu-ray-Brian-Cox/dp/B004XKVQVU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316710838&sr=8-1); I really enjoyed the show and its a nice place to spend a few hours without getting bogged down in the heavy math and physics.

[aubsxc]

I never ever believed that for a second. Other theories as well such as dark matter and dark energy I am also extremely skeptical of as well because they have zero evidence. I mean there could be other variables like say a ton of black holes in the void between galaxies? Supermassive blackholes maybe too.

Dark matter and dark energy are not so much scientific theories, but mathematical abstractions that are required in order to balance the models of the universe we have built so far. It takes much more mass to hold together galaxies as cohesive units than we can observe with our instruments; therefore, there must be some entity that behaves in a manner equivalent to all the missing mass, which scientists refer to as dark matter. We don't know what this dark matter is or why it is dark, but we know it exists because of the influence it exerts on the "visible" matter that we can study.

[bucketface]

Quote:
Originally Posted by bucketface View Post
well the only thing that they can really say for certain is that black holes appear to have an immense gravitational field. any theories thay may have, other than that are just theories.
anyway they may just be gigantic, super dense objects that dont reflect light. who knows. it's rather difficult to determine the exact nature of things when they a hundres/thousands/millions of lightyears away.
You appear to have a common misconseption of the word "theory". In scientific language, a theory has good solid evidence to back it up, it's not just someone's idea. A theory without evidence is called a hypothesis. Therefore, dismissing something as "just a theory" is just plain wrong.

Believe me, black holes do exist. They don't just not reflect light, but suck it in. All of it, along with everything else. Gravity at the event horizon is so strong, that you'd have to be going faster than light to escape, which is impossible. What happens at the singularity? No one knows. This is the point at which General Relativity breaks down and we may never know what goes on there.

Here's an excellent resource for learning everything about black holes: www.universetoday.com/46443/black-hole It's fascinating. Enjoy.

Sorry I think i didn't really express myself very well. I'll try to keep it as breif & clear as possible.
I feel that people give too much import to theories these days. There is a reason they are not given the status of a "law of physics". while there is data that supports theories there is still a level of doubt. Quoting them as fact is thus incorrect.
My "hypothesis" was an attempt at an example of what a potential theory could be, keeping within the evidence that is "known" about blackholes. We know very little factual information about blackholes other than they appear to absorb all light that comes close to them and they have an imense gravitational field.
I do not believe that "blackholes" are wormholes or anything of the like. I am highly skeptical of the existence of "whiteholes" or any such antithesis to a "blackhole".
From my understanding the commonly acceptet theory is that blackholes are massive super dense balls of matter that due to their immense gravity (or some other effect) draw even light in.

ok. i think thats enough for now...

Ps. unrelated to blackholes, still science though.
Does anyone think that maybe the reason that they get some matter left over when they're doing the anit-matter tests is because the matter and anit-matter have fused.
After all anti-matter is just supposed to be inversely charged atoms.
I'm kind of starting to think that all matter might be made of both. eg.
atom is made of +proton & neutron in the nucleus with a field of surrounding electrons.
anti-atom is -proton & neutron in nucleus with a field of surrounding positrons.
maybe the actual structure is:
+proton & -proton(neutron) in nucleus with a field of both electrons and positrons.
it should still work electromagnetically. It would also mean that the only force that affects an atom is an electromagnetic one. the neutron being negatively charged and thus forming the nucleus with the positive charge of the proton. it atleast explains how an atom's nucleus is held together... better than a combination of gravity and the electron field. maybe atoms can be made to be imablanced (have a greater positive charge or negative one) and when they come in contact there is a series of rappid fission and fusion until they equalise. (think heat transfer, energy likes to even out)
anyway just a thought....

[Benetanegia]

What happens at the singularity? No one knows. This is the point at which General Relativity breaks down and we may never know what goes on there.

I've always been confused by that uncertainty. Doesn't the next hypothesis just make sense according to General Relativity?

Once a critical mass is achieved, the black hole is capable of such intense gravity that not even light can escape, right. Wouldn't that equal to having such a gravity* that nearby/falling objects are under a very big (infinite?) time dilation (as if time had been stopped (almost) inside the event horizon)? Of course time didn't stop, but time dilation is such, that the objects could still be falling towards the black hole's surface "forever" according to an observer outside of the event horizon, or according to the rest of the universe, which is kind of the same. This way ojects would still be falling for a far longer time than the age of the universe outside the event horizon.

* Also due to extremely high gravity == acceleration, objects would acquire speeds close to speed of light so it's two factors right there that create time dilation affecting the objects falling into a black hole. Unless I completely misunderstood General Relativity, it makes sense to me.

EDIT: Just to be clear with one of the implications of the hypothesis abve: gravity grows exponentially as distance between masses decreases, but speed of light is finite and connot ever be surpassed. Hence the closer the objects are to the mass of the black hole the bigger that time dilation is, speed of the objects remains relatively unchanged though and thus they'd appear to remain almost static. Maybe a black hole does not even have an entirely solid core, even though it may appear from the outside (well if that was posible), because most of it's mass is "almost there" but not quite yet. Imagine being only some nanometers away from "touching", but still requiring aeons to reach. 90%++ of current black hole's mass could be in that situation, don't you think? I'm missing something evident?

[qubit]

I've always been confused by that uncertainty. Doesn't the next hypothesis just make sense according to General Relativity?

Once a critical mass is achieved, the black hole is capable of such intense gravity that not even light can escape, right. Wouldn't that equal to having such a gravity* that nearby/falling objects are under a very big (infinite?) time dilation (as if time had been stopped (almost) inside the event horizon)? Of course time didn't stop, but time dilation is such, that the objects could still be falling towards the black hole's surface "forever" according to an observer outside of the event horizon, or according to the rest of the universe, which is kind of the same. This way ojects would still be falling for a far longer time than the age of the universe outside the event horizon.

* Also due to extremely high gravity == acceleration, objects would acquire speeds close to speed of light so it's two factors right there that create time dilation affecting the objects falling into a black hole. Unless I completely misunderstood General Relativity, it makes sense to me.

EDIT: Just to be clear with one of the implications of the hypothesis abve: gravity grows exponentially as distance between masses decreases, but speed of light is finite and connot ever be surpassed. Hence the closer the objects are to the mass of the black hole the bigger that time dilation is, speed of the objects remains relatively unchanged though and thus they'd appear to remain almost static. Maybe a black hole does not even have an entirely solid core, even though it may appear from the outside (well if that was posible), because most of it's mass is "almost there" but not quite yet. Imagine being only some nanometers away from "touching", but still requiring aeons to reach. 90%++ of current black hole's mass could be in that situation, don't you think? I'm missing something evident?
The way I understand the time dilation effect from the viewpoint of a distant observer, is that as an object falls towards the BH and is close to it, time will move more slowly, so it will appear to fall ever more slowly and apparently stop at the event horizon. At the same time, the light coming from it will become dimmer and more red-shifted until it disappears from view. So basically, yes you're right. :)

Some theorists have suggested that due to this effect, one will never see a BH, because it will look perpetually frozen at the point of forming. Others are not so sure. I think you would "see" it, because of the paradox of infinitesmal movement, but don't quote me, lol.
EDIT: Just to be clear with one of the implications of the hypothesis abve: gravity grows exponentially as distance between masses decreases, but speed of light is finite and connot ever be surpassed. Hence the closer the objects are to the mass of the black hole the bigger that time dilation is, speed of the objects remains relatively unchanged though and thus they'd appear to remain almost static. Maybe a black hole does not even have an entirely solid core, even though it may appear from the outside (well if that was posible), because most of it's mass is "almost there" but not quite yet. Imagine being only some nanometers away from "touching", but still requiring aeons to reach. 90%++ of current black hole's mass could be in that situation, don't you think? I'm missing something evident?
Current thinking is that the singularity is a point of zero dimensions and infinite density right in the middle of the BH. I don't know enough about the other stuff to answer your question, unfortunately.

Seriously, have a look at that Universe Today link I gave a few posts ago explaining all about BHs, it really is fascinating stuff. :cool:

EDIT: This one! http://www.universetoday.com/46443/black-hole