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    A Black Hole Destroys A Galaxy

    A jet of highly charged radiation from a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy is blasting another galaxy nearby -- an act of galactic violence that astronomers said yesterday they have never seen before.

    Using images from the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other sources, scientists said the extremely intense jet from the larger galaxy can be seen shooting across 20,000 light-years of space and plowing into the outer gas and dust of the smaller one.

    The smaller galaxy is being transformed by the radiation and the jet is being bent before shooting millions of light-years farther in a new direction.

    "What we've identified is an act of violence by a black hole, with an unfortunate nearby galaxy in the line of fire," said Dan Evans, the study leader at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. He said any planets orbiting the stars of the smaller galaxy would be dramatically affected, and any life forms would likely die as the jet's radiation transformed the planets' atmosphere.

    Black holes are generally thought of as mysterious cosmic phenomena that swallow matter, but the supermassive ones that occur at the center of many -- possibly all -- galaxies also set loose tremendous bursts of energy as matter swirls around the disk of material that circles the black hole but does not make it in.

    That energy, often in the form of highly charged gamma rays and X-rays, shoots out in powerful jets that can be millions of light-years long and 1,000 light-years wide.

    Scientists are just beginning to understand these jets, which not only transform matter in their path but also help produce "stellar nurseries," where new stars are formed.

    Evans's collaborator, Martin Hardcastle of the University of Hertfordshire in England, said the collision they have identified began no more than 1 million years ago and could continue for 10 million to 100 million more years. Hardcastle called the collision a great opportunity to learn more about the jets.

    "We see jets all over the universe, but we're still struggling to understand some of their basic properties," he said. "This system . . . gives us a chance to learn how they're affected when they slam into something -- like a galaxy -- and what they do after that."

    The two galaxies are more than 1.4 billion light-years away from the Milky Way galaxy (a light-year equals about 6 trillion miles). But they are close to each other in cosmic terms -- about as far as the distance from Earth to the center of the Milky Way. That the two appear to be moving toward a merger may have played a role in creating such a powerful jet from the larger galaxy's central black hole.

    The researchers said that the collision would have no effect on Earth, but the process is one that could play out in our galaxy a billion years into the future.

    The galaxy Andromeda is the closest to the Milky Way, and the two are gradually coming closer to each other. In time, astronomers say, the two will merge, and the process may cause the dormant central black holes in either the Milky Way or Andromeda to become active and begin sending out similarly powerful jets.

    If a jet were to hit Earth, Evans said, it would destroy the ozone layer and collapse the magnetosphere that blankets the planet and protects it from harmful solar particles. Without the ozone layer and magnetosphere, he said, much of life on Earth would end.

    "This jet could be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it is pummeling," Evans said.

    Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said the discovery illustrates how researchers can now observe astronomical phenomena using many different tools and understand how they behave at many different points along the electromagnetic spectrum. Only when scientists measure a galaxy at all different wavelengths, he said, "can you really understand what's going on."

    In making their discovery, the researchers used data from three orbiting instruments -- the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope -- as well as ground-based observatories including the Very Large Array telescope in New Mexico and Britain's Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network. The Astrophysical Journal will publish the results next year.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...=moreheadlines

    #2
    I read about this at another site and like a person there said, this gives a whole new meaning to the idea super weapons.

    "Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards." - Fred Hoyle
    Feel free to visit my Art Work.

    Comment


      #3
      This could be the third SG-1 movie.

      A giant big thing that seperated from a black hole is heading to earth & the government is forced to reveal the Stargate program to the World & they use the gate & ships & with the help of allies to evacuate as many people as possible while SG-1 along with the Atlantis team finds a way to stop the jet from coming to earth.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by TheJediSpectre View Post
        This could be the third SG-1 movie.

        A giant big thing that seperated from a black hole is heading to earth & the government is forced to reveal the Stargate program to the World & they use the gate & ships & with the help of allies to evacuate as many people as possible while SG-1 along with the Atlantis team finds a way to stop the jet from coming to earth.
        it's too bad that it would be a short movie

        => We go merlin => end

        Damn the universe is a dangerous place. I wonder how they have forgotten it in SG series..

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by Semmer View Post
          it's too bad that it would be a short movie

          => We go merlin => end

          Damn the universe is a dangerous place. I wonder how they have forgotten it in SG series..
          I wonder if the ascended being would step in, would it even affect them? The writers could make it into a good story but there would be some twist. They have already done black holes so this could be the next step.
          Best quotes ever:
          O’NEILL: I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for food.
          Jack O'neill: I hope you diplomatically told him where to shove it.
          Teal'c:If you once again try to harm me or one of my companions, my patience with you will expire.
          Carter: You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.
          Thor:I like the yellow ones
          O´Neill:Hey, if you had been listening, you´d know that Nintendos pass through everything.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by umopapisdn View Post
            I wonder if the ascended being would step in, would it even affect them? The writers could make it into a good story but there would be some twist. They have already done black holes so this could be the next step.
            It wouldn't effect them, so they are just sitting back and watching the show

            Go Green

            Comment


              #7
              Super Weapon 101

              1. Select target: galaxy.
              2. Enter target coordinates.
              3. Align the super massive blackhole from your weaponized galaxy, by rotating the galaxy.
              4. Fire super massive black hole. SMBH sucks some of the matter of your galaxy and shoots it at the other galaxy.
              5. Take pictures.

              <_< ... >_> ... looks around for any galaxy suspiciously pointing its hole at me...
              The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by umopapisdn View Post
                I wonder if the ascended being would step in, would it even affect them?
                Maybe this is the true face of the Ori. Maybe this is the by-product of two groups of ascended beings duking it out and the stream of deadly radiation is all we see from our plane of existence.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by TheJediSpectre
                  an act of galactic violence that astronomers said yesterday they have never seen before.

                  [...]

                  "What we've identified is an act of violence by a black hole
                  outrageous & unacceptable

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by SoulRe@ver View Post
                    outrageous & unacceptable
                    Why is that? This just goes to show that school yard bullying scales up to galactic proportions.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by SP90
                      Why is that? This just goes to show that school yard bullying scales up to galactic proportions.
                      yeah but a black hole assaulting a galaxy (full of white dwarves) ?
                      don't tell me race has nothing to do with this

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by SP90 View Post
                        Maybe this is the true face of the Ori. Maybe this is the by-product of two groups of ascended beings duking it out and the stream of deadly radiation is all we see from our plane of existence.
                        I like that idea..

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by SoulRe@ver View Post
                          yeah but a black hole assaulting a galaxy (full of white dwarves) ?
                          don't tell me race has nothing to do with this
                          LMAO

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by SoulRe@ver View Post
                            yeah but a black hole assaulting a galaxy (full of white dwarves) ?
                            don't tell me race has nothing to do with this
                            Well if this does have anything to do with racial assault Dr. Phills the only hope for peace. Because face it any one or thing would most certainly work together and put aside their differences just to stop, kill and end the teachings of that annoying Dr. Phill.

                            But seriously there may be some possibility that some extremeley intelegent race thats hundreds of billions of years into its technalogical and evolutionary stages could have done this by manipulating the black holes position and. I mean theoreticly its possible... Right? Seriously i wanna know.
                            Pure.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              But who could get so pissed at another to destory an entire GALAXY?

                              Not to mention, if the hole was a flame thrower, if I put my hand around the start of the flame (part of the attacking galaxy), I would still get burnt.

                              So atleast a fourth of the attacking galaxy is being screwed :\

                              Go Green

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