Monday 2 July 2012

Black Hole Unleashes Extraordinarily Bright X-Ray Burst


At left is an optical view of M83. At right is a composite image showing X-ray data from Chandra in pink and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in blue and yellow. The ULX is located near the bottom of the composite image

A NASA space telescope has detected an incredible energy burst from a distant black hole, an explosion so intense that it boosted the black hole's X-ray brightness by at least 3,000 times, scientists say.
The outburst came from a black hole in the spiral galaxy M83, about 15 million light-years away from Earth. Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers found a new object, called an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX),  that emits more X-rays than most "normal" systems in which a companion star orbits around a black hole or neutron star, the researchers said.
The observations from Chandra spanned several years, and scientists noticed that the ULX in M83 increased its X-ray brightness by at least 3,000 times.

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