“NASA Finds Youngest Nearby Black Hole
For Release: November 15, 2010
CXC
SN 1979C
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/D.Patnaude et al, Optical: ESO/VLT, Infrared: NASA/JPL/Caltech
Press Image and Caption
Evidence for the youngest known black hole in our cosmic neighborhood has been found using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. The age and proximity of this object could provide astronomers with a unique opportunity to watch a black hole develop during its infancy.
The object in question is associated with SN 1979C, a supernova in the galaxy M100 discovered by an amateur astronomer in 1979. While many likely new black holes in the distant Universe have been detected in the form of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), this nascent black hole candidate is much closer, at a distance of only 50 million light years from Earth.
Data from Chandra, as well as NASA’s Swift, the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton and the German ROSAT observatory revealed a bright source of X-rays that has remained steady for the 12 years from 1995 to 2007 over which it has been observed. This behavior and the X-ray spectrum, or distribution of X-rays with energy, support the idea that the object is a black hole being fed either by material falling back into the black hole after the supernova, or from a binary companion.”
Topic: NASA to reveal new object (Read 10784 times)
