Sunday, December 11, 2016

'Hyper-Starburst' Galaxy Churns out Stars, Clues to Universe’s Evolution

Everything dies and everything evolves; these ideas made up much of the thinking behind the "Dimensions of Death" book by my ol' Dad ... but some entities do it much more spectacularly than others.  (Science Daily:  'Hyper-starburst' galaxy churns out stars, clues to universe’s evolution)


- Kremlin Express:  Астрономы открыли галактику, в которой каждый год появляются тысячи звезд  (Astronomers have discovered a galaxy where every year there are thousands of stars)

Unknown if there are specifics on the wavelengths used for the photography but it's quite a bit different from the article I have just read.


Here's a really spectacular one produced by the researchers and this gives plenty of information on the light used to generate it.


The distorted galaxy in the simulation results from a collision between two galaxies, followed by them merging.  Astronomers think such a merger could be the reason why SPT0346-52 is having such a boom of stellar construction.  Once the two galaxies collide, gas near the center of the merged galaxy (shown as the bright region in the center of the simulation) is compressed, producing a burst of new stars.  The composite inset shows X-ray data from Chandra (blue), short wavelength infrared data from Hubble (green), infrared light from Spitzer (red) at longer wavelengths, and infrared data from ALMA (magenta) at even longer wavelengths.  (The light from SPT0346-52 is distorted and magnified by the gravity of an intervening galaxy, producing three elongated images in the ALMA data located near the center of the image.  SPT0346-52 is not visible in the Hubble or Spitzer data, but the intervening galaxy causing the gravitational lensing is detected.)  There is no blue at the center of the image, showing that Chandra did not detect any X-rays that could have signaled the presence of a growing black hole.

Credit: Image courtesy of CXC Press Office.


"For decades, astronomers have known that supermassive black holes and the stars in their host galaxies grow together," said co-author Joaquin Vieira of the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign.  "Exactly why they do this is still a mystery. SPT0346-52 is interesting because we have observed an incredible burst of stars forming, and yet found no evidence for a growing supermassive black hole.  We would really like to study this galaxy in greater detail and understand what triggered the star formation and how that affects the growth of the black hole."

SPT0346‐52 is part of a population of strong gravitationally-lensed galaxies discovered with the SPT.  It appears about six times brighter than it would without gravitational lensing, which enables astronomers to see more details than would otherwise be possible.

- Science Daily


It would be foolish to feign any expertise on the matter of the collision of impossibly large things in which the stars are so far apart, individually, they don't crash into one another.  Whether this is an inter-galactic car crash or an extraordinary form of birth is for you to consider and the article has plenty of details.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Totally seperate note but astronomical.
We are ground zero for solar eclipse 2017 with the longest duration of 2 min 40 secs Right above one of my houses.
Visitors from all over the world are already renting houses and hotel space in our podunk town.

Unknown said...

In my life I never heard of a direct hit like that one anywhere near where I was.

I don't recall what Alex and Anne did for eclipses but I would have been terrified in that circumstance with the potential for six blind kids. Maybe they kept us inside for the duration.

You know already I'm not buying it about 'podunk' as, for me, podunk is in the city and the good light is outside. The Rock City is hugely motivated by Fort Worth since it's the worst case of urban sprawl I've ever seen with astounding waste of land.

Podunk is "Doc Hollywood" and I've loved that movie for years.

Anonymous said...

If I remember back then the trainimg was to watch through a full coke bottle

Unknown said...

You've got me on that one as my only impression is You Look ... You Go Blind. I've had that fear of death ever since. That one goes deep since I wouldn't even look through the pinhole or watch the reflection or so. That's really the only programming I remember.