Nasa Satellite Detects Previously Unknown Black Hole In Milky Way

[News_Editor]

NASA satellite detects previously unknown black hole in Milky Way < br />

2012-10-07 10:01:13 GMT+7 (ICT)

WASHINGTON (BNO NEWS) -- NASA on Friday announced that its Swift satellite recently detected the presence of a previously unknown stellar-mass black hole. A rising tide of high-energy X-rays from a source toward the center of the Milky Way galaxy produced by a rare X-ray nova signaled the black hole.

Neil Gehrels, the mission's principal investigator, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said bright X-ray novae are so rare that they're essentially once-a-mission events and this is the first one Swift has seen.

An X-ray nova is a short-lived X-ray source that appears suddenly, reaches its emission peak in a few days and then fades out over a period of months. The outburst arises when a torrent of stored gas suddenly rushes toward one of the most compact objects known, either a neutron star or a black hole.

The rapidly brightening source, which was named Swift J1745-26 after the coordinates of its sky position, triggered Swift's Burst Alert Telescope twice on the morning of September 16, and once again the next day.

According to NASA, the nova is located a few degrees from the center of the Milky Way galaxy toward the constellation Sagittarius. Its precise distance is still unknown, but they think the object resides about 20,000 to 30,000 light-years away in the galaxy's inner region.

"The pattern we're seeing is observed in X-ray novae where the central object is a black hole," said Boris Sbarufatti, an astrophysicist at Brera Observatory in Milan, Italy, who currently is working with other Swift team members at Pennsylvania's Penn State in University Park.

"Once the X-rays fade away, we hope to measure its mass and confirm its black hole status," Sbarufatti added.

Swift, launched in November 2004, is managed by Goddard Space Flight Center. It is operated in collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Virginia, with international collaborators in the United Kingdom and Italy and including contributions from Germany and Japan.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-10-07

[RubbaJohnny]

That's the Blue Diamond cleared up....

[HansVilder]

Meanwhile.... in Reality on present day Earth, millions are starving.. economic collapse is ongoing.. 'austerity' is crippling.. WW3 is looming..

$millions (x10) spent on hypothetical ideas is a good thing NASA & affiliates?

when will the world get its priorities right...

[MJP]

Meanwhile.... in Reality on present day Earth, millions are starving.. economic collapse is ongoing.. 'austerity' is crippling.. WW3 is looming..

$millions (x10) spent on hypothetical ideas is a good thing NASA & affiliates?

when will the world get its priorities right...

Edited October 7, 2012 by MJP

[HansVilder]

^ ahh.. good old Sir Patrick! (i see you edited the pic a couple of times)

i've actually corresponded with him in the past, and in the scheme of things in the world today (and at his ripe old age now) i'm sure he'd agree with my point to a certain extent.

[MJP]

^ ahh.. good old Sir Patrick! (i see you edited the pic a couple of times)

i've actually corresponded with him in the past, and in the scheme of things in the world today (and at his ripe old age now) i'm sure he'd agree with my point to a certain extent.

He's the baddie in the the new Bond film, Skyfall at Night.

[HansVilder]

He's the baddie in the the new Bond film, Skyfall at Night.

Skyglow-feld.

[mania]

Meanwhile.... in Reality on present day Earth, millions are starving.. economic collapse is ongoing.. 'austerity' is crippling.. WW3 is looming..

$millions (x10) spent on hypothetical ideas is a good thing NASA & affiliates?

when will the world get its priorities right...

Yes that is one way of looking at it,

but also we could realize all the things you mentioned were created by man & costs billions upon billions.

They continue to cost billions & yet we do not see. This years US presidential election alone cost $6 BILLION DOLLARS

It is small minded struggles for power on a tiny planet that caused the things you listed.

Perhaps if we as a race/species saw bigger pictures we could get it together?

I agree priorities need straightening but discovery/wonderment is not what caused the things you mention.

Greed & struggle for power/dominance did.

Edited October 8, 2012 by mania

[maidu]

Meanwhile.... in Reality on present day Earth, millions are starving.. economic collapse is ongoing.. 'austerity' is crippling.. WW3 is looming..

$millions (x10) spent on hypothetical ideas is a good thing NASA & affiliates?

When will the world get its priorities right...

Nasa spends comparatively small amounts to find and disseminate spectacular photos and info to the rest of the world for free. A few European countries and Japan do a smattering of that also. China can't. There's something special about finding out about the universe and seeing images. Perhaps not for everyone.

Militaries spend thousands times more than space exploration. There will always be people needs on Earth which don't get as much resources as some of us would like. Just like there will always be poor people in your neighborhood or city. Are you not going to buy a jar of deli pickles because some families on the other side of town don't have rice to eat? Help the poor, if you so choose. I do, to some degree (I support about 10 hill tribers where I reside). But I don't begrudge NASA for doing the amazing things they do.

[Sayonarax]

This news is old.