Radio Telescopes Capture Best-Ever Snapshot of Black Hole Jets

Originally posted by Jetman44
If they can get pictures of galaxies that look like these....why can't they zoom into planets in our own galaxy and look for signs of life?

Notice the part of the article that states:

Seen in radio waves, Cen A is one of the biggest and brightest objects in the sky, nearly 20 times the apparent size of a full moon. This is because the visible galaxy lies nestled between a pair of giant radio-emitting b]lobes, each nearly a million light-years long.

These lobes are filled with matter streaming from particle jets near the galaxy's central black hole. Astronomers estimate that matter near the base of these jets races outward at about one-third the speed of light.

Using an intercontinental array of nine radio telescopes, researchers for the TANAMI (Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry) project were able to effectively zoom into the galaxy's innermost realm.

"Advanced computer techniques allow us to combine data from the individual telescopes to yield images with the sharpness of a single giant telescope, one nearly as large as Earth itself," said Roopesh Ojha at NASA'sGoddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The point is, people tend to assume that images such as this are visible to the naked eye. They're not. They are the result of a number of sources that are combined to display the data, and most importantly, it is using radio telescopes to 'see' the noise.

So you can't just point it at Neptune and zoom in on the fuzzy warbles bathing in the frozen methane lakes... wrong sort of information for the telescopes to pick up.

reply to post by Jetman44

If they can get pictures of galaxies that look like these....why can't they zoom into planets in our own galaxy and look for signs of life?

Here are three good reasons.

1. It’s a picture made by radio waves, not visible light, and most lifeforms don’t emit radio waves.
   
   

   
   Using an intercontinental array of nine radio telescopes, researchers for the TANAMI (Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry) project were able to effectively zoom into the galaxy's innermost realm. OP link

   
   
2. At radio frequencies, that galaxy is brighter than the full moon, even though it’s 12,000,000 light-years away.
   
   

   
   Seen in radio waves, Centaurus A is one of the biggest and brightest objects in the sky, nearly 20 times the apparent size of a full moon. OP link

   
   
3. The smallest detail you can see in that picture is 241,350,000,000 miles wide.
   
   

   
   Radio-emitting features as small as 15 light-days can be seen, making this the highest-resolution view of galactic jets ever made. OP link

There are other reasons too, but those should suffice, I think.

reply to post by XPLodER

if nothing can escape a black hole, and nothing could power the jet except a black hole, how can both statements be true?

It is because the gravity gradient of the hole is so steep the tidal stresses it creates tear bodies, including stars and planets, apart. The energy released by this destruction can sometimes escape the black hole, and the same sort of mechanical factors that create vortices, whirlpools, twisters, etc. on Earth focus some of this energy into jets. The jets need a hell of a lot of energy to keep going, which is why only a black hole could power them.

*

reply to post by OrionHunterX

See above for the answer to your question.

I should add, for the information of ATSers who may otherwise be misled, that Stephen Crothers is not a ‘noted physicist’ but an ATS member and former graduate student who was refused a Ph.D from the University of New South Wales and has since found aid and comfort amongst the plasma-cosmology fraternity. You can read his side of the story at his web site and make up your own mind as to just how noted Mr. Crothers is.

Originally posted by highfreq

The longer I look at this picture the more I am seeing something very dramatic. Below and to the left there is an "explosion" of black clouds and as you look upward from that point you see the ejection streamer that has a bent tip, which could indicate that it is in a rotational mode.

It appears as if the streamer coming from the black hole center swept through the galaxy side and vaporized it!

Originally posted by Jetman44
If they can get pictures of galaxies that look like these....why can't they zoom into planets in our own galaxy and look for signs of life?

Maybe because little green men aren't the type of life they're exactly looking for. Maybe because life also includes things like what we can only see with a microscope.

"AW man, I just know they're hiding the martian men from me! And I wanna see a UFO before I die!"

Originally posted by Jetman44
If they can get pictures of galaxies that look like these....why can't they zoom into planets in our own galaxy and look for signs of life?

The article said that the resolution (i.e. one pixel) at 12 million light-years was 15 light-days, or ~0.04 light years.
Using trig, that comes out to an angular resolution of 0.0007 seconds of arc.
Using that resolution on the Alpha Centauri star system 4.3 light-years from Earth, one pixel would be equal to ~140,000 km, which is roughly the size of Jupiter.

So this system could theoretically detect large gas giants around nearby stars, but would not have the resolution to see surface features on planets of any size.

Bummer.

"Space is really big..."

reply to post by highfreq


A galaxy that is only 4.2 ly across? Are you sure that the numbers are correct? What is the name of that galaxy?

reply to post by Astyanax


i do understand the theory of the event horizon and that nothing can escape the event horizon,
i would like to point out the article acually metions the source "supermassive black hole"
and while i also understand the tidal forces (incomplete) i wounder if the event horizon is the area capable of speeding matter to super luminal speedz. if so is the supermassive BH acually capable of creating heavyer atoms by the exact same tidal forces?

xploder

Amazing! Its cool what modern technology can do right?

reply to post by highfreq


Yep, numbers are wrong.
This image is of Centaurus A, the jets coming from the BH are over a million light years long. Research it, I'm correct.
Where did they get 4.2 light years from? I don't know.

Originally posted by manontrial
reply to post by highfreq

 

A galaxy that is only 4.2 ly across? Are you sure that the numbers are correct? What is the name of that galaxy?

No, the region in the image is only 4.3 light-years across. The galaxy it's in is ~90,000 light-years across.

From the article
The new image shows a region less than 4.2 light-years across -- less than the distance between our sun and the nearest star. Radio-emitting features as small as 15 light-days can be seen, making this the highest-resolution view of galactic jets ever made. The study will appear in the June issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is available online.

Mueller and her team targeted Centaurus A (Cen A), a nearby galaxy with a supermassive black hole weighing 55 million times the sun's mass. Also known as NGC 5128, Cen A is located about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus and is one of the first celestial radio sources identified with a galaxy.

reply to post by highfreq


Hmm... something isn't right. I have seen this image before and it appears that all they did was take an old image and adjust the colors. At 00:11 into this video it has the same image and the video was uploaded just over a year ago:



Again, I don't see any spectacular difference in between the image posted and the one in the video, all they appear to have done change the colors up a bit. Perhaps they are passing this off to justify the money invested in their project? Regardless... amazing image. What is really neat is that one can clearly see the distribution of particles from the black hole throughout the surrounding galaxy, which is torus shaped just like our universe, and that one can picture these particles coming back down and settling upon the ecliptical plane and forming new stars on the fringes.

reply to post by highfreq


Those are some great images. Glad to have found this thread.

Next up this image in 11 gigapixel.

-Lightrule

I tried to tell you guys this a while back...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

No one wanted to listen...(except one dude...- YOU ROCK!!)

Is this the same thing we are talkin' about???

Basically...

Indeed intriguing, to say the least...

Your welcome...

Listen up PEOPLE!!!!

The end is here...............................................................

reply to post by ChemicalResurrection


Good find.

Very odd indeed

Originally posted by ChemicalResurrection
reply to post by highfreq

 

Hmm... something isn't right. I have seen this image before and it appears that all they did was take an old image and adjust the colors. At 00:11 into this video it has the same image and the video was uploaded just over a year ago:

Again, I don't see any spectacular difference in between the image posted and the one in the video, all they appear to have done change the colors up a bit. Perhaps they are passing this off to justify the money invested in their project? Regardless... amazing image. What is really neat is that one can clearly see the distribution of particles from the black hole throughout the surrounding galaxy, which is torus shaped just like our universe, and that one can picture these particles coming back down and settling upon the ecliptical plane and forming new stars on the fringes.

Very nice catch if this is true. The video certainly was uploaded a year ago, but that doesn't mean to say that the video hasn't been edited since.

Itr's definetely the same picture though.

reply to post by Saint Exupery


No, wrong.
The image clearly shows the entire Centaurus A Galaxy, and I'm sorry to inform you, but the Centaurus A Galaxy is much larger THAN four point two light years across.
Whoever wrote the article, is not an astronomer.

The picture indeed shows the whole NGC 5128 Galaxy, hundreds of thousands of lightyears in size. The image of the inner black hole jets are available on NASA site:

www.nasa.gov...

reply to post by Maslo


Ah, so THAT'S the image they were speaking of, NOT the one that was actually posted.
Thankyou.

reply to post by Maslo


Thanks for the correct image, Maslo! The foreground stars had me thinking that something wasn't right. Silly me for trusting the caption!