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    Lightbulb Astronomy & Cosmology

    Granny wonderin' how dey s'posed to find it if ya can't see it?...

    Quasars illustrate dark energy's roller coaster ride
    13 November 2012 - BOSS data is acquired by the 2.5m Sloan telescope at Apache Point Observatory in the US
    Scientists have used a novel technique to probe the nature of dark energy some 10 billion years into the past. They hope it will bring them closer to an explanation for the strange force that appears to be driving the Universe apart at an accelerating rate. The method relies on bright but distant objects known as quasars to map the spread of hydrogen gas clouds in space. The 3D distribution of these clouds can be used as a tracer for the influence of dark energy through time. A scholarly paper describing the approach has been submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and posted on the arXiv.org preprint site. It is authored by the BOSS (Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey) team, which uses the 2.5m Sloan Foundation Telescope in New Mexico, US, to make its observations of the sky.

    The international group's new data is said to be a very neat fit with theory, confirming ideas that dark energy did not have a dominant role in the nascent Universe. Back then, gravity actually held sway, decelerating cosmic expansion. Only later did dark energy come to the fore. "We know very little about dark energy but one of our ideas is that it is a property of space itself - when you have more space, you have more energy," explained Dr Matthew Pieri, a BOSS team-member. "So, dark energy is something that increases with time. As the Universe expands, it gives us more space and therefore more energy, and at some point dark energy takes over from gravity to end the deceleration and drive an acceleration," the Portsmouth University, UK, researcher told BBC News.


    The BOSS team used 48,000 distant quasars to "back-light" and map the distribution of clouds of hydrogen gas in the early Universe

    The discovery that everything in the cosmos is now moving apart at a faster and faster rate was one of the major breakthroughs of the 20th Century. But scientists have found themselves grasping for new physics to try to explain this extraordinary phenomenon. A number of techniques are being deployed to try to get some insight. One concerns so-called baryon acoustic oscillations. These refer to the pressure-driven waves that passed through the post-Big-Bang Universe and which subsequently became frozen into the distribution of matter once it had cooled to a sufficient level. Today, those oscillations show themselves as a "preferred scale" in the spread of galaxies - a slight excess in the numbers of such objects with separations of 500 million light-years.

    It is an observation that can be used as a kind of standard ruler to measure the geometry of the cosmos. The BOSS team has already done this using a large volume of galaxies that stretch some six billion light-years from Earth. But at greater distances - and hence deeper in cosmic time - these standard galaxies are simply too faint for the Sloan telescope to see. Instead, the BOSS team has used quasars (quasi-stellar radio sources) to help it map the cosmos. Quasars are far flung galaxies where a massive central black hole is driving the emission of huge amounts of electromagnetic radiation. These are visible to Sloan.

    More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20303592

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    Amazing.

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    Cool

    So far away it's prob'ly gone by now...

    Farthest monster black hole found
    6 Dec.`17 - Astronomers have discovered the most distant "supermassive" black hole known to science.
    The matter-munching sinkhole is a whopping 13 billion light-years away, so far that we see it as it was a mere 690 million years after the Big Bang. But at about 800 million times the mass of our Sun, it managed to grow to a surprisingly large size such a short time after the origin of the Universe. The find is described in the journal Nature. This relic from the early Universe is busily devouring material at the centre of a galaxy - marking it out as a so-called quasar.


    Quasars are some of the brightest objects in the Universe

    Matter, such as gas, falling onto the black hole will form an ultra-hot mass of material around it known as an accretion disk. "Quasars are among the brightest and most distant known celestial objects and are crucial to understanding the early Universe," said co-author Bram Venemans of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany. This quasar is interesting because it comes from a time when the Universe was just 5% of its current age. At this time, the cosmos was beginning to emerge from a period known as the dark ages - just before the first stars appeared. "Gathering all this mass in under 690 million years is an enormous challenge for theories of supermassive black hole growth," said co-author Eduardo Bañados, from the Carnegie Institution for Science.

    The quasar's distance is described by a property called its redshift - a measurement of how much the wavelength of its light is stretched by the expansion of the Universe before reaching Earth. The newly discovered black hole has a redshift of 7.54. The higher the redshift, the greater the distance, and the farther back astronomers are looking in time when they observe the object. Prior to this discovery, the record-holder for the furthest known quasar existed when the Universe was about 800 million years old. "Despite extensive searches, it took more than half a decade to catch a glimpse of something this far back in the history of the Universe," said Dr Bañados.


    The Gemini North observatory was among several involved in the discovery

    The discovery of a massive black hole so early on may provide key clues on conditions that abounded when the Universe was young. "This finding shows that a process obviously existed in the early Universe to make this monster," Dr Bañados explained. "What that process is? Well, that will keep theorists very busy." The unexpected discovery is based on data amassed from observatories around the world. This includes data from the Gemini North observatory on Hawaii's Maunakea volcano and a Nasa space telescope called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (Wise).

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42252235

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    Hubble spots dark vortex on Neptune...

    Hubble locates new dark spot on Neptune
    June 23, 2016 - The last several Neptune vortices seen by astronomers have exhibited a wide range of sizes and shapes.
    There's a new dark spot on Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun. Astronomers recently confirmed the presence of a dark vortex spinning across the planet's atmosphere after examining imagery collected by the Hubble Space Telescope last month. It's the first Neptune vortex discovered since 1994.

    The high pressure system is accompanied by bright companion clouds. Researchers believe the clouds are formed as the vortex pushes ambient air higher into the atmosphere, forcing gases to freeze into methane ice crystals. "Dark vortices coast through the atmosphere like huge, lens-shaped gaseous mountains," Mike Wong, a researcher astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a news release. "And the companion clouds are similar to so-called orographic clouds that appear as pancake-shaped features lingering over mountains on Earth."


    Wong led the investigation of Hubble data that yielded the discovery of the new dark spot. Jupiter hosts similar cyclone-like disturbances, but the gas giant's vortices are more uniform and sometimes persist, slowly evolving, for decades. Previous studies have proven Neptune's vortices to be a permanent feature, but the disturbances are shorter-lived.

    The last several Neptune vortices seen by astronomers have exhibited a wide range of sizes and shapes, and have proven to be relatively unstable -- wandering north and south, speeding up and slowing down. Scientists hope further monitoring of Neptune's vortices will illuminate how they originate and the factors that influence their fluctuations.

    http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016...?spt=sec&or=sn
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    ‘Dark Vortex’ Spotted on Neptune
    June 24, 2016 - The vortex is about the same size as the US
    Astronomers have spotted a “dark vortex” swirling in Neptune’s atmosphere. Using high resolution images captured in May by the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers say the vortex is about the size of the continental United States.

    The vortex is a high pressure system and is accompanied by bright clouds. In 2015, astronomers spotted clouds and later a dark spot nearby. The May 2016 images confirmed the presence of the vortex. "Dark vortices coast through the atmosphere like huge, lens-shaped gaseous mountains," said University of California at Berkeley research astronomer Mike Wong. "And the companion clouds are similar to so-called orographic clouds that appear as pancake-shaped features lingering over mountains on Earth." Vortices on Neptune have been spotted before. In 1989, the Voyager 2 spacecraft saw one, and in 1994, Hubble pinpointed one.


    A dark vortex was spotted on Neptune.

    Astronomers say the vortices “have exhibited surprising diversity over the years, in terms of size, shape, and stability (they meander in latitude, and sometimes speed up or slow down).” They also have relatively short lifespans compared to anticyclones seen on Jupiter, which “evolve over decades. Further study should yield a better understanding about how vortices develop, what causes them to move and how they interact with the environment, researchers said. Neptune is roughly 4.3 billion kilometers from the Sun, and it takes 165 Earth years to make one orbit of the sun.

    http://www.voanews.com/content/mht-d...e/3390910.html

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    Blue Moon O'er Kentucky...

    January Features Two Supermoons, Blue Moon and Total Lunar Eclipse
    December 31, 2017 - Nature lovers will have their fill of celestial treats in January with two supermoons, a blue moon and a total lunar eclipse gracing the night sky.
    The first supermoon of 2018 will occur on the evening of New Year's Day into the night of Jan. 2. A supermoon occurs when a full moon is at its closet orbital point to Earth, appearing up to 30 percent brighter and up to 14 percent larger than when the moon is at its furthest point in its orbit. Another supermoon will follow on Jan 31, passing by Earth about 26,500 kilometers (16,466 miles) closer than usual. Those two supermoons are part of a trilogy of supermoons that began on Dec. 3. Forecasters say it is rare to have two supermoons back to back, let alone three in a row.

    Scientists say the best time to view a supermoon is right after moonrise and before sunrise, when the moon is sitting on the horizon. This makes the moon look even larger compared to other objects appearing against the night sky, such as buildings and trees. The last full moon of January is also known as a blue moon because it is the second full moon to occur during a single month.


    A full moon, known as the Blue Moon, is seen next to the Statue of Liberty in New York

    The Jan. 31 moon will also feature a total lunar eclipse, with totality visible from western North America across the Pacific to eastern Asia. The moon will appear to be red, and is nicknamed a blood moon, because it lines up perfectly with the Earth and sun such that the Earth’s shadow totally blocks the sun’s light. The moon loses the brightness normally caused by the reflection of the sun's light and takes on an eerie, reddish glow.

    The lunar eclipse will make the Jan. 31 moon a blood moon, a blue moon and a supermoon all at the same time. Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is safe to view with the naked eye, so there is nothing to fear if you are captivated for a long stretch by the night sky.

    https://www.voanews.com/a/january-fe...e/4185393.html

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    Cool info, but as a member of "Friends of Pluto" I must take exception to calling Neptune the farthest planet.
    People who think a movie about plastic dolls is trying to turn their kids gay or trans are now officially known as

    Barbie Q’s

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    'Serious gap' in cosmic expansion rate calls for new physics...

    'Serious gap' in cosmic expansion rate hints at new physics
    11 Jan.`18 - A mathematical discrepancy in the expansion rate of the Universe is now "pretty serious", and could point the way to a major discovery in physics, says a Nobel laureate.
    The most recent results suggest the inconsistency is not going away. Prof Adam Riess told BBC News that an unknown phenomenon, such as a new particle, might explain the deviation. The difference is found when comparing precise measurements of the rate obtained in different ways. However, the statistics are not yet at the threshold for claiming a discovery, Prof Riess, who is based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, was one of three scientists who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering that the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating. This phenomenon was widely attributed to a mysterious, unexplained "dark energy" filling the cosmos.

    Values holding

    The unit of measurement used to describe the expansion is called the Hubble Constant, after 20th Century astronomer Edwin Hubble - after whom the orbiting space observatory is named. Appropriately, Prof Riess has been using the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument on the Hubble telescope (installed during the last servicing mission to the iconic observatory) to help refine his measurements of the constant. "The answer we get is 73.24. This is not very different to what people have gotten before measuring the Hubble constant. What is different is that the uncertainty has gotten quite a bit smaller," he said here at the 231st American Astronomical Society meeting in National Harbor, just outside Washington DC. "The uncertainty has been dropping progressively over time, while the value has not been changing very much." To calculate the Hubble Constant, Prof Riess and others use the "cosmic ladder" approach, which relies on known quantities - so-called "standard candles" - such as the brightness of certain types of supernova to calibrate distances across space. However, a different approach uses a combination of the afterglow of the Big Bang, known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), as measured by the Planck spacecraft and a cosmological model known as Lambda-CDM.


    Artwork: The expansion of the Universe has been accelerating in the billions of years since the Big Bang

    The Hubble Constant obtained using these data is 66.9 kilometres per second per megaparsec. (A megaparsec is 3.26 million light-years, so it follows that cosmic expansion increases by 66.9km/second for every 3.26 million light-years we look further out into space). The gap between the two is now at a confidence level of about 3.4 sigma. The sigma level describes the probability that a particular finding is not down to chance. For example, three sigma is often described as the equivalent of repeatedly tossing a coin and getting nine heads in a row. A level of five sigma is usually considered the threshold for claiming a discovery. However, Prof Riess said that at the three sigma level "this starts to get pretty serious I would say". "In fact, in both cases of measurements, these are very mature measurements... both projects have done their utmost to reduce systematic errors," he added. Indeed, a recent measurement of time delays in quasars that is completely independent of the cosmic distance ladder data gets very similar results to Prof Riess's late Universe Hubble Constant. For the early Universe, a 2017 analysis using the density of baryonic (normal) matter in the cosmos yields a very similar value as the one obtained by the Planck team.


    Variable stars known as cepheids are one of the many "standard candles" used to calibrate cosmic distances

    What this all suggested, he said, was that the Universe is now expanding 9% faster than expected based on the data - a result he described as "remarkable". One way to bridge the divide is to invoke new phenomena in physics. There are various ways to account for it, including the addition of a new particle, called a sterile neutrino, to the Standard Model - the best tested theory of particle physics. The sterile neutrino would represent the fourth type - or flavour - of neutrino; but while the other three are well known to physicists, attempts to detect a fourth with experiments have not come up with much. Another possibility is that dark energy behaves in a different way now compared with how it did in the early history of the cosmos. "One promising way is if we don't have dark matter be so perfectly 'collision-less' but it could interact with radiation in the early Universe," Prof Riess said. He has submitted a paper with his latest analysis of the Hubble Constant for publication in a journal.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42630399

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    Cool

    Granny says, "Dat's right - dem space aliens is havin' a laser light show on Jupiter...

    Bright Lights, Strange Sounds Detected on Jupiter
    July 01, 2016 - NASA has released a photo showing glowing auroras on Jupiter.
    The image was taken using the Hubble Space Telescope and shows the auroras, which are bigger than Earth, lighting up the gas giant’s poles. While Earth also has auroras, they’re caused by solar storms as opposed to Jupiter’s, which are caused by the massive planet pulling in charged particles from its surroundings as well as the solar winds. "These auroras are very dramatic and among the most active I have ever seen", says Jonathan Nichols from Britain's University of Leicester and principal investigator of the study. "It almost seems as if Jupiter is throwing a firework party for the imminent arrival of Juno." The Juno space probe is days away from a rocket burn that will insert the spacecraft into Jupiter’s orbit later this month.


    This image combines an image taken with Hubble Space Telescope in the optical (taken in spring 2014) and observations of its auroras in the ultraviolet

    The probe recently detected odd sounds coming from Jupiter, which NASA describes as a bow shock. “The bow shock is analogous to a sonic boom,” researcher William Kurth of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, said in a NASA news release. “The solar wind blows past all the planets at a speed of about a million miles per hour, and where it hits an obstacle, there’s all this turbulence.” During its mission, Juno will make 37 “close approaches” to Jupiter, and each one could imperil the craft. For example, under the clouds, there is a layer of hydrogen under so much pressure that it conducts electricity. That, along with the planet’s fast rotation [one day on Jupiter is only 10 hours long], creates a strong magnetic field, creating what NASA calls the “harshest radiation environment in the solar system.”

    Juno is fitted with “radiation-hardened electrical wiring and shielding” as well as a unique titanium vault that protects the probe’s most vital equipment, such as the flight computer. The vault is so strong that it will reduce radiation exposure by 800 times. Without it, “Juno's electronic brain would more than likely fry before the end of the very first flyby of the planet.” To further mitigate the exposure, Juno’s orbit around the planet will be unusual, as described in the video below.

    http://www.voanews.com/content/mht-b...r/3400199.html

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    Odd goin'-ons in outer space...

    Astronomers Spy Giant Planet, Three Stars in Odd Celestial Ballet
    July 07, 2016 — Astronomers have discovered a planet unlike any other ever found, one that loops widely around one star that is locked in a gravitational embrace with two others in a triple-star system, creating a curious celestial ballet. The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, challenge current notions about what makes a planetary system viable.
    With three stars in the system, the massive planet would experience triple sunrises and triple sunsets during one season and all daylight in another. Since the planet's orbit is very long, each season lasts for hundreds of years. "Depending on which season you were born in, you may never know what nighttime is like," lead researcher Kevin Wagner of the University of Arizona said. The planet, called HD 131399Ab, is about four times bigger than Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, and is orbiting in a three-star system located about 340 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. Scientists are not sure how HD 131399Ab came to exist. It orbits its parent star about twice as far as Pluto circles the sun, needing 550 years to complete a single orbit.


    This artist's impression shows a view of the triple star system HD 131399 from close to the giant planet orbiting in the system. The planet is known as HD 131399Ab and appears at the lower-left of the picture.

    Astronomers have previously discovered planets in multi-star systems, but never one that circles a parent star with such a wide berth. It also is one of the few extrasolar planets — those outside our solar system — to be directly imaged by telescope. The planet's orbit is akin to the distance more typically seen when a star orbits another star, not a planet orbiting a star. "This is the first planet that we've found with an orbit that is comparable to that of the stars," Wagner said. If HD 131399Ab's orbit was just a bit wider, computer simulations show it could be gravitationally elbowed out of the system by the pair of smaller stars that orbit each other and the main star, which is about 80 percent bigger than the sun.

    Though the planet is relatively young, around 16 million years old compared to the 4.5-billion-year-old Earth, it likely has had an eventful life. Scientists suspect it may have started off in a much closer orbit around two parent stars before it was gravitationally bounced to its extreme distance. Scientists plan additional observations to determine if the planet's orbit is actually stable. "It is not clear how this planet ended up on its wide orbit in this extreme system ... but it shows there is more variety out there than many would have deemed possible," Wagner said. The planet was detected using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in northern Chile.

    http://www.voanews.com/content/astro...a/3408452.html
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    Water Clouds May Float in Dwarf Star’s Atmosphere
    July 07, 2016 - Astronomers say they’ve collected evidence that points to the existence of the first water, or water ice, clouds detected outside the solar system.
    Writing in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists from the University of California Santa Cruz say the brown dwarf called WISE 0855, which is a mere 7.2 light-years from Earth, likely has the clouds in its atmosphere. Using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, researchers scanned WISE 0855, the coldest known object outside the solar system, in the infrared spectrum, which yielded “the first details of the object's composition and chemistry.” "We would expect an object that cold to have water clouds, and this is the best evidence that it does," said Andrew Skemer, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz and first author of the study.

    Brown dwarfs are often referred to as failed stars, because they never gained quite enough mass to cause the nuclear fusion reactions that make them shine. WISE 0855 is about five times the mass of the gas giant Jupiter. "WISE 0855 is our first opportunity to study an extrasolar planetary-mass object that is nearly as cold as our own gas giants," Skemer said.


    Artist's rendering of WISE 0855 as it might appear if viewed up close in infrared light.

    Because WISE 0855 is so faint, researchers had to look at “thermal emission from the deep atmosphere at wavelengths in a narrow window” to gain insight into the composition of its atmosphere. "It's five times fainter than any other object detected with ground-based spectroscopy at this wavelength," Skemer said. "Now that we have a spectrum, we can really start thinking about what's going on in this object. Our spectrum shows that WISE 0855 is dominated by water vapor and clouds, with an overall appearance that is strikingly similar to Jupiter."

    The two bodies, researchers say, have “strikingly similar” spectra “with respect to water absorption” but that WISE 0855 likely has a less turbulent atmosphere than Jupiter.

    http://www.voanews.com/content/mht-w...e/3407842.html
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    Saturn’s Moon, Titan, Could Support Life
    July 06, 2016 - Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, could support a very different kind life, according to a new study.
    Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Cornell University say that despite the moon’s harsh environment, a “prebiotic chemical key” likely exists in the form of hydrogen cyanide. The compound is produced when sunlight interacts with the moon’s “toxic” atmosphere made up of nitrogen and methane. The conclusion was reached based on data from NASA’s Cassini and Huygen’s missions.


    Titan is seen from the Huygens probe as it descended to the surface

    Hydrogen cyanide is an organic chemical capable of reacting with other molecules, “forming long chains, or polymers, one of which is called polyimine. Polyimine is flexible, which helps mobility under very cold conditions, and it can absorb the sun’s energy and become a possible catalyst for life,” researchers said. “Polyimine can exist as different structures, and they may be able to accomplish remarkable things at low temperatures, especially under Titan’s conditions,” said Martin Rahm, postdoctoral researcher in chemistry and lead author of the new study. This paper is a starting point, as we are looking for prebiotic chemistry in conditions other than Earth’s. “We are used to our own conditions here on Earth. Our scientific experience is at room temperature and ambient conditions. Titan is a completely different beast.”

    Other moons in the solar system have also been identified as having conditions that could support life, including Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa. While both Earth and Titan have flowing liquids in the form of lakes, rivers and oceans, on Titan they are filled with liquid methane and ethane, not water. Also, the moon is too cold to have liquid water. “We need to continue to examine this, to understand how the chemistry evolves over time. We see this as a preparation for further exploration,” said Rahm. “If future observations could show there is prebiotic chemistry in a place like Titan, it would be a major breakthrough. This paper is indicating that prerequisites for processes leading to a different kind of life could exist on Titan, but this only the first step,” he added.

    http://www.voanews.com/content/mht-s...e/3406796.html

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    Japan's Astro-H satellite Data Adds to Understanding of 'Black Holes'...

    New Data Adds to Understanding of 'Black Holes'
    September 12, 2016 | WASHINGTON — Scientists continue to learn more about black holes in space, places where the pull of gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. Black holes occur after supergiant stars explode into brilliant but short-lived supernovas. All the matter dispersed by that titanic explosion collapses in a few weeks or months, and gravity crushes it all into a tiny space. Now, data from a Japanese satellite is helping decipher the secrets of these invisible singularities.
    Black holes are invisible to the human eye. But telescopes with special tools can help find them by revealing how they affect nearby stars. In February, Japan’s space agency rocketed its Astro-H satellite into orbit to examine large-scale structures in the cosmos, like supermassive black holes that exist at the center of most galaxies. Unfortunately, after only about a month in space, the satellite fell apart. But before it went out of commission, it was able to gather vital data about the Perseus cluster, consisting of hundreds of galaxies 240 million light years from earth.


    On board Astro-H was a unique X-ray spectrometer, which showed that superheated gas at the cluster's heart flows much more calmly than expected. "And that gives us a very precise measurement of how much energy is being pumped into this gas by supermassive black holes, and so it allows us to form a more complete picture of how galaxies evolve, how the stars and the gas that will eventually cool out like rain to form the stars, evolves over cosmic time,” explained Brian McNamara, an astrophysicist at the University of Waterloo in Canada.




    Researchers are also closely looking at the hot plasma—a type of matter--and gases that surround the galaxies. "This is gas that has not cooled out and condensed out like rain in our atmosphere to form stars, planets, life, for example. So it's the potential for the future, and we're trying to understand what the future destiny of this galaxy and many other galaxies would be,” said McNamara.


    Supermassive black holes may manipulate how galaxies form and evolve. “The energy released by these giant black holes is very tightly coupled to these atmospheres, which is the stuff out of which future stars will form,” said McNamara. And this means the invisible giant at their heart influences the rate at which a galaxy grows.


    http://www.voanews.com/a/new-data-ad...s/3503113.html

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