Monday 30 September 2013

The core of our galaxy is about to explode

It seems that there is nothing so peaceful as the scene of the Milky Way in the summer sky - or at least so we thought. In reality, the center of our galaxy is a mess, made from stars that are spinning with incredible speed, super nova remnants and highly magnetised neutron stars. All these orbits around monstrously large black hole with a mass of 4 million times the mass of the Sun.

And things will soon become more violent. Astronomers have detected the gas cloud, called G2, which decays to hasten towards the center of the black hole. Later this year, the black hole will begin to consume the gas cloud. As gas slowly accelerates to incredible speeds, it collides with other things that come to meet him, is heated and radiate incredible pace.

A similar event 10 years ago created so intense outburst of light that was as bright as a million suns. We know this because the light echoes still refuse the center of the galaxy.


Judging by the astronomer
Shep Doeleman, the upcoming event is expected to last a year or more, and he classifies as a matter that we will experience a once in a lifetime.

Despite its enormous size, the black hole is still a thousand times too small to be able to see the Hubble Space Telescope and on top of that, Interstellar dust blocks all light.

However, the wavelength of the radio waves of about 1 millimeter can succeed and give us insight into this black hole.


International Network of radio plates

Doelman currently organizing Event Horizon Telescope, a project that should create an international network of radio plate to work as a TV. They will collect the incoming microwave radiation, which is like a light, but with a higher wavelength. It is a one-sided process - the plates will passively receive radio signals emitted by sources in the center of the galaxy.

Among the plates would be a physical connection, but the data will simultaneously come to them around the world.

The data will be collected by a super-computer and will keep them on the hard disk. He will then work with them to create, Do 2015. year, according to Doelman, picture shadow of the black hole.

No comments:

Post a Comment