An artist's impression of a stray black hole that was detected at the edge of the W44 supernova remnant,
located 10,000 light-years from Earth.
Posted on 02/12/2017 10:30:51 AM PST by ETL
A stray black hole may be responsible for turning a gas cloud into a speeding cosmic bullet trillions of miles long.
The wandering black hole was discovered lurking just outside a supernova remnant, a shell of expelled material left behind after a massive star explodes. Using the Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment (ASTE) in Chile and the 45-meter (148 feet) Radio Telescope at Nobeyama Radio Observatory, astronomers found that the black hole had been previously hidden by a compact gas cloud emerging from the remnant.
The cloud itself has now been named "the Bullet," because of its long, cone shape and its incredible speed — part of the cloud is moving away from the supernova remnant at more than 60 miles per second [100 kilometers per second], "which exceeds the speed of sound in interstellar space by more than two orders of magnitude," Nobeyama Radio Observatory scientists said in the statement. The researchers now suspect that the black hole might have played a role in forming the gaseous "bullet."
The supernova remnant, called W44, is located 10,000 light-years from Earth. The Bullet, which is about 2 light-years long [11.76 trillion miles, or 18.9 trillion km], is so energetic that it moves backward against the rotation of the Milky Way galaxy, according to the Nobeyama Radio Observatory statement.
"Most of the Bullet has an expanding motion with a speed of 50 km/s [31 miles per second], but the tip of the Bullet has a speed of 120 km/s [75 miles per second]," Masaya Yamada, lead author of the new study and a graduate student at Keio University in Japan, said in the statement. "Its kinetic energy is a few tens of times larger than that injected by the W44 supernova. It seems impossible to generate such an energetic cloud under ordinary environments."
So what could possibly send such a huge amount of molecular gas streaming out of the supernova remnant at such high speeds? The discovery of the hidden black hole may offer an explanation.
The researchers developed two possible scenarios for how the Bullet might have formed. The first, called the explosion model, suggests that the cloud passed by a static black hole and was pulled in by the black hole's strong gravitational forces. This could have created a powerful explosion of gas that was spit back out into space, Nobeyama scientists said.
Another theory, called the irruption model, proposes that a high-speed black hole tore through the dense molecular cloud, and the black hole's powerful gravitational pull left a stream of gas in its wake. Further research is required to determine which model best explains the origin of the Bullet, according to the study, published Dec. 29, 2016, in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Although millions of black holes are thought to exist in the Milky Way, it is often difficult to locate them because they are completely black. However, this study has revealed a new way for astronomers to detect these types of elusive, stray black holes — by their influence on molecular gas clouds — that would otherwise float alone in space and remain unnoticed with no observable emissions, the scientists said in the statement.
An artist's impression of a stray black hole that was detected at the edge of the W44 supernova remnant,
located 10,000 light-years from Earth.
For the record, *one* light year, the *distance* light travels in a year, at its constant speed of 186,000 miles per second, works out to about 5.9 TRILLION miles. That’s 5,900 billion miles! ...in ONE light year. This thing they estimate at 10,000 light years away. Meanwhile, there are galaxies in our universe that are over 12 billion light years distant.
Dang man, looks like it’s headed straight for us...
I thought sound required a medium that would support the waves - is there a speed of sound in interstellar space?
Never mind, I looked it up:
Speed of sound in interstellar space is 10 - 100 km/s (as opposed to .34 km/s in air at sea level and 1.5 km/s in water).
Seems like scientists would be more specific unless this one assumed the high end for his reference about it exceeding the speed by several magnitudes.
“The wandering black hole was discovered lurking just outside a supernova remnant, a shell of expelled material left behind after a massive star explodes.”
According to the astronomy pros, many of the atoms in our bodies, the heavier ones, were created and/or once inside one of these huge exploding stars.
An expanding velocity that slow?
Caught my eye, too. A big “huh”?
Wiki: “The vacuum of intergalactic space is not devoid of matter, as it contains a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. By comparison, the air we breathe contains about 10^25 molecules per cubic meter.”
Not much of a medium to conduct sound, is it?
When God said "let there be light" He spoke it in a big way...
Looks like the view from the bottom of a glass sink.
Mainstream cosmology is a mess of assumptions piled upon more assumptions and justified with fancy arcane math. Sometime believing is not seeing.
As Niels Bohr once said to a smug young lecturer, “You have told us more than you can possibly know!”
Nope, which makes me wonder why it is so much faster in space than in air or water since the denser water conducts it almost 5 times as fast as the thinner air. Must be it uses wormholes......
An expanding velocity that slow?
Does seem very slow for this sort of thing. The earth orbits the sun at about 18 miles per second. And the sun orbits our Milky Way galaxy at roughly 130 miles per sec.
I agree with all of that.
Not much of a medium to conduct sound, is it?
A few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter?? Hard to imagine any sort of "ripple" or "wave" effect going on in that sparseness.
Still not bigger than 19 Trillion Dollars in debt, sadly.
Yes, but nearly as much as Bill Gates' net worth. :)
“Nope, which makes me wonder why it is so much faster in space than in air or water since the denser water conducts it almost 5 times as fast as the thinner air. Must be it uses wormholes...... “
In a medium, speed is not related to density.
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