News tagged with active galaxies

Black holes and star formation

(PhysOrg.com) -- It has long been recognized that galaxy mergers or even close interactions can play a vital role in shaping the morphology of galaxies. One way they can do so, it is thought, is by triggering ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (7) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Galaxy mergers not the trigger for most black hole feeding frenzies

(PhysOrg.com) -- A survey of distant galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope has put another nail in the coffin of the theory that galaxy mergers are the main trigger for turning quiescent supermassive black ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 14, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 51 | with audio podcast

Suspects in the quenching of star formation exonerated

Supermassive black holes millions to billions times the mass of our Sun lie at the heart of most, maybe all large galaxies. Some of these power brilliantly luminous, rapidly growing objects called active galactic nuclei that ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 11, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

INTEGRAL observations suggest unified model for Active Galactic Nuclei requires a rethink

Scrutinizing a large sample of Active Galactic Nuclei with INTEGRAL, astronomers have found that, unexpectedly, sources affected by stronger absorption at lower energies show an excess emission in the hard ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 03, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

What activates a supermassive black hole?

A new study combining data from ESO's Very Large Telescope and ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray space observatory has turned up a surprise. Most of the huge black holes in the centres of galaxies in the past 11 billion ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 13, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (13) | comments 108 | with audio podcast

Astrophysicists use X-ray fingerprints to study eating habits of giant black holes

By studying the X-rays emitted when superheated gases plunge into distant and massive black holes, astrophysicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have provided an important test of a long-standing ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 06, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Radio telescopes capture best-ever snapshot of black hole jets (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team, including NASA-funded researchers, using radio telescopes located throughout the Southern Hemisphere has produced the most detailed image of particle jets erupting from ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 21, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (28) | comments 14 | with audio podcast

Identity parade clears cosmic collisions of the suspicion of promoting black hole growth

(PhysOrg.com) -- What happens when galaxies crash together? For years, these cosmic collisions have been blamed for triggering violent outbursts at the hearts of galaxies. Now, a remarkable piece of detective ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 05, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 14 | with audio podcast

How often do giant black holes become hyperactive?

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory tells scientists how often the biggest black holes have been active over the last few billion years. This discovery clarifies how supermassive ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 20, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 19 | with audio podcast

Mergers Most Likely Fuel for Active Galaxies

(PhysOrg.com) -- The first solid evidence for how the center of some galaxies come to shine brightly while others barely flicker has been uncovered by researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 16, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Supermassive black holes may frequently roam galaxy centers

A team of astronomy researchers at Florida Institute of Technology and Rochester Institute of Technology in the United States and University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, find that the supermassive black ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 25, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 20 | with audio podcast

How do supermassive black holes get so big?

(PhysOrg.com) -- At the center of most galaxies lie supermassive black holes that can grow to become more than a billion times larger than our Sun. However, astrophysicists don’t fully understand the formation ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 26, 2010 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (12) | comments 1 | with audio podcast weblog

Surveying the X-ray Sky

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have only modest laboratories to probe the mysteries of the cosmos. Mostly they have to rely on meticulous and clever observations of remote phenomena.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 11, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Galaxy History Revealed in This Colorful Hubble View (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- More than 12 billion years of cosmic history are shown in this unprecedented, panoramic, full-color view of thousands of galaxies in various stages of assembly.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 06, 2010 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 0

RIT astronomer mines Spitzer Space Telescope data for massive starbursts

Understanding the evolution of galaxies is one of the biggest questions confronting astronomers today. Looking at distant astronomical objects gives scientists important clues to the origins of the Milky Way Galaxy and other ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 08, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0