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NASA / JPL-Caltech
This artist's concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun.
By Mike Wall
Space.com
Astronomers have made the first reliable measurement of a supermassive black hole's spin, showcasing a technique that could help unravel the mysteries of these monsters' growth and evolution.
The enormous black hole at the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is spinning about 84 percent as fast as Einstein's general theory of relativity allows it to, researchers determined. The find demonstrates that at least some supermassive black holes are rotating rapidly — a claim previous studies had hinted at but failed to confirm.
"It's the first time that we can really say that black holes are spinning," study co-author Fiona Harrison, of Caltech in Pasadena, told Space.com. "The promise that this holds for being able to understand how black holes grow is, I think, the major implication."
X-ray light
Supermassive black holes are almost incomprehensibly huge, with some containing 10 billion or more times the mass of our sun. Scientists think one lurks at the heart of most, if not all, galaxies. [Gallery: Black Holes of the Universe]
NGC 1365, located about 56 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Fornax, does indeed harbor a gigantic black hole — one as massive as several million suns. And this behemoth is blasting out enormous quantities of energy as it gobbles up gas and other nearby matter, making it an intriguing target for astronomers.
In the new study, researchers analyzed data from two X-ray space telescopes — the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatory and NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. The telescopes observed NGC 1365 in July 2012.
By zeroing in on the high-energy light emitted by iron atoms, the telescopes were able to trace the motion of the flat, rotating accretion disk that circles NGC 1365's black hole and funnels gas and dust into its greedy maw.
Astronomers found that the emissions were strongly distorted, suggesting that the inner edge of the accretion disk may be quite close to the black hole — close enough for gravitational effects to wreak havoc with the X-rays streaming from the disk. This in turn implied a rapidly rotating black hole, since general relativity states that the faster a black hole is spinning, the closer its disk can come to it, Harrison said.
That's one interpretation. In the past, some astronomers have put forward a different interpretation of the readings. They suggested that such distortion, which has been observed in accretion disk emissions before, could be caused by clouds of gas that hang between a supermassive black hole and the telescopes observing it. [The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]
"This has been a big controversy — which of the two is going on?" Harrison said.
How fast a super-massive black hole spins may indicate what it fed on and how often. NASA's NuSTAR X-Ray Telescope is helping to decode the early life story of a nearby active galaxy by timing its rotation and measuring its glow.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
This graphic shows two models for the spin of a black hole. Observations from NASA's NuSTAR probe revealed that the prograde rotation model applied in the case of NGC 1365's black hole - and that suggests that the black hole is spinning at an incredibly fast rate.
Pinning down the spin
The observations from the $165 million NuSTAR telescope, which launched in June 2012, cracked the case.
Using NuSTAR's super-sensitive measurements of high-energy X-rays, the astronomers calculated that if there were gas clouds in the way, they would have to be incredibly thick to produce the observed distortion levels. In fact, they'd have to be so thick as to make the whole idea untenable, at least in the case of NGC 1365's black hole.
"To shine through these thick clouds, the black hole would have to be so bright it would basically blow itself apart," said Harrison, who is the principal investigator for the NuSTAR mission. "So what has to be happening is, what we're seeing is these relativistic distortions. And that means that the disk is coming close to the black hole, which means the black hole must be spinning rapidly."
The research team, led by Guido Risaliti of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics' Arcetri Observatory, calculated this rotation rate to be 84 percent of that allowed by general relativity.
It's tough to comprehend this figure, since it doesn't translate well into miles per hour. One estimate puts the speed at 670 million mph, or 1.08 billion kilometers per hour. In any case, it's safe to say that the black hole is spinning incredibly fast.
"The analogy of an actual velocity is not quite right," Harrison said. "But what you can say is that spinning black holes twist space-time around them. And if you were standing near the black hole, basically your space-time would be twisted, or dragged, around such that you would have to rotate once every four minutes just to be standing still."
The new study was published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.
How a black hole grows
Astronomers think that supermassive black holes acquire most of their spin as they grow, rather than being born with it. So studying their rotation rates can yield insights into how these monsters have evolved over time.
The superfast spin of NGC 1365's black hole, for example, implies that it did not grow via numerous small black-hole mergers, Harrison said, since the odds are very low that many such chaotic events would spin it up in the same direction. Rather, it's more likely that NGC 1365's central black hole acquired its spin from one major merger, or simply by gobbling material from an accretion disk that has remained stable over the long haul.
The new study represents a first step toward a better understanding of the nature and evolution of supermassive black holes, Harrison said.
"We will make more measurements like this," she said. "Eventually what you'd like to do is have a bigger telescope that can actually measure more distant black holes so we can, using the statistics of the sample, understand how they grow over cosmic time."
Follow Space.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.
- Black Hole - It Is What It Ate | Video
- No Escape: Dive Into a Black Hole (Infographic)
- Gallery: NuSTAR, NASA's Black Hole Hunting Space Telescope
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The connection and proof that BlackHoles lead to other dimensions and locations in space and that life exists elsewhere in the Universe and just not on Earth.
We know that the blackhole is a very destructive force in the Universe that it consumes all the matter in its path whole solar systems, stars, planets everything reducing even the largest of stars into it's base particles. But with all of the mass that a blackhole consumes the matter must go somewhere.
I would have to theorize that a blackhole is like another destructive force in the Universe. That other force is humanity. Humans are as destructive as the blackhole on a elementary scale comparable to our abilities but humans are just as capable as creating just as the blackhole is.
Comparative overlay
Human figure on the left. The image of the blackhole on the right.
First I will begin with the mouth of the human and the event horizon of the blackhole. Both beings require matter in order to survive. For the human this comes in the form of many types of food. For the blackhole such food comes int the form of stars, planets whole solar systems. Both beings cannot survive with sustanance. Both human and blackhole alike would die without the ability to consume food. Such a consumption causes each body to grow in size and yes both eventually die of old age.
But the most interesting connection is the following.
When a human consumes food the systems of the body break that which has been eaten down into what the body needs on a daily basis the rest is stored. That which cannot be used is passed through the digestive system and out of the body either as urine or stool or sometimes even regurgatation.
A blackhole operates in the same manner. The blackhole consumes all local matter where the matter is digested inside of the event horizon where matter that is consumed becomes part of the ecrition disck and sometimes matter is ejected out of the blackhole in the form of various types of radiation. But the question where does the matter that is digested that isn't stored in the ecrition disk and ejected back into space goto?
For the human the matter that is passed through the body that is not able to be broken down and stored as energy exits the body as either urine or stool. The process of creation however isn't finised there for the remnants of the energy that was consumed by human for the simple fact that stool can be dried out and crushed and used as fertilizer.
This I know for certain from growing up on a farm I spent many Saturdays during the Summer loading the manure spreader. You really don't fully understand the Universe until you shovel cow @!$%# for eight hours a day.
Once the stool is dried out crushed and spread over the ground the enzymes and the microbes in the stool and the ground along with other creatures such as flies sift through the stool looking for particles of food that were passed through the body and out as stool that their bodies then digest the food in the same manner that the human and black hole does thus continuing the circle of life. Microbials in the ground pass what they can't use out into the ground along the flies and other insects where the very small amounts of energy are stored in the ground until a seed comes along and absorbs its energy in order for it too grow into a plant or tree.
The same would have to bee true with a blackhole because humanity was created by the Universe and since the comparisons thus so far have mirrored one another another then a blackhole would also have a digestive track that like the food that our body cannot use as energy the matter that is not able to stored by the blackhole would pass through a conduit and eventually empty out some other place in space time. Like the human stool that is then used by other insects as energy and fertilization for seeds the particles that are passed through the blackhole's conduit would possibly emerge in various parts of the Universe in the form of micro blackholes. Once the micro hole blackhole has deposited the particle mass the particles would be picked up by other particles based upon the particles ability to combine with them to create other particles such as hydrogen, helium, etc that begin the process of creating life once again just like it does on Eart in the above example.
This is comparatively true because like I mentioned humans are born of the Universe and that the natural forces that we see in the Universe like the blackhole are relative to each other and differ only in the type of matter that is consumed. A blackhole consumes all matter and uses it based upon nergetic reactions. Humans on the other hand cannot consume all types of matter but only what is able to be converted into energy by the biological systems of our bodies in order to provide energy for our body to work to perform a function or process for a purpose.
This theory also comparatively proves that humans are not the only life in the Universe. At the same time that the Big Bang occured energetic reactions and combinations of particles that formed the human seed would have been traveling through space and eventually ended up on Earth. The same ring of energy that carried the human seed from the beginning of the Big Bang would also have carried the seed of life for other species of life as well that once they encountered a planet that was able to sustain them the seed would have grown into a life such in the form of a human or otherwise.
This can also once again be comparatively proven just by looking at the human reproductive system. The male releases millions of sperm which in this case would be compared to the energy and particles released during the Big Bang.Such particles then travel the Universe until they come into contact with the egg which is in this case is a planet that is able to support the combination of the sperm to grow a new life. This is true because humans and the Universe are one in the same. So with that being said the possiblity of life existing elsewhere in the Universe is true and not debateable as Earth being the only planet in the Universe capable of sustaining life. If such a notion was true then there would only be one female that was able to give birth. But since there are hundreds of millions of females that can be impregnated and a life grown in the womb then the same notion would of fertile planets existing elsewhere in the Universe is true. Some with life on them others able to sustain life.
Such planets may or may not have life on it based upon the notion that like the fertile male and female that cannot conceive children because of the celluar communication between each gender the process of life and sustainability of life on a planet would still be present.
Like I mentioned before humans are a mirror of the Universe. The same process of life that exists in us is a mirror of how we were created by the Universe which means that life will in fact exist elsewhere in the Universe and not just on Earth.
The only difference between the Universe and Humanity is that humanity has the ability to determine its own fate to make a choice. A choice that should be governed, that needs to be governed by intelligence free of greed and of want of what others have for theirself lest the human remain like the beast that lays in the dirt and slithers to and fro that are like the Universe without the ability to create a higher level of thought except for self loathing and dominance that can never be achieved and will never be achieved by any human for as long as humanity is a presence in the Universe.
dwighthuth,
If you want to make a nuisance of yourself and post rants like that, start your own blog - that was not a comment, simply annoying.
The localized present of matter interferes temporarily with the flow of fusion energy's normal run down to entropy. Earth being one example that causes entropy to reverse and produce life. That life rather than take advantage of its position instead facilitates the energy's run down to entropy and effectively erasing that life. Were matter and energy arranged differently both would past unnoticed by a temporary interruption we call life.
This called a polite response to nihilist argument.
"Supermassive black holes are almost incomprehensibly huge..." Come on now, at the risk of sounding like the grammar police, can't we just tell it like it is? a Supermassive black hole is not almost incomprehensively huge, it is incomprehensively huge.
Oh Dwight, You must be writing a book, cause you sure couldn't put that together during the 3 minutes that I writing. Maybe we ARE the universe.
I thought nothing could escape a black hole. So, how can we even take measurements? Im just messing with science.
Nothing can escape once it crosses the event horizon of the black hole.
No rules against stuff surrounding the black hole getting kicked out by the massive gravity.
Scientists figure out the properties of the black hole by observing the stuff that surrounds it. If they know the width of the space inside the accretion disk, they can plug that into calculations to come up with a spin rate for the black hole within. The smaller the space, the faster the spin ... as indicated in the graphic from JPL. Spooky, right?
This is just a theory, but it seems like black holes perform similarly to a water vortex or tornado, can those not be studied and translated over to black holes? Does a black hole spit it's accreted matter out on both sides or just one??
This black hole got spinning so fast in much the way that people do when they start pivoting with their arms outstretched and then pull their arms in close to their bodies. - RC
Conservation of Angular Momentum
(Only it is the arms of a spinning galaxy which are getting pulled in.) - RC
It will be interesting to see the measurements of other black holes and how they compare to the 84%.
I'm not sure this speed of rotation could be estimated, as a wheels speed is faster on the outside diameter than the speed at the center, so, it depends at what point you take a measurement of something that is invisible. When will they build a telescope that can see the invisible?
Black holes for dummies: They are big, black and dangerous, stay away at all costs.
Ex: An angry Mr. T
Man loves to search to find out God. Possibly, he will find God, or God will find him but, he will never find Him out.
black holes suck.
Given the title, I thought the story would be about Kim Kardashian.
Doesn't 670 million mph translate to 99.9% the speed of light? If so, how can this same speed be only 84% of the allowable maximum speed?
I wonder how many of these telescopes could have been built by now if we had not wasted all those billions of dollars on the space shuttle program?
I wish one day we can elect a President with balls to finally get our priorities correct.
670 million mph - I think that this doesn't say enough: Is that the speed of matter along the edge of the event horizon; and then what is the dimension of the event horizon for this particular black hole? In other words, what is the angular speed of rotation and is there a limit for it (the angular rotation speed) that depends on the size of the even horizon?
Unrelated note - why the artists are allowed always to paint a little black ball in the middle to represent the black hole's event horizon? We know that there should be one but to an observer that is not how it would appear - you would see somewhat distorted background instead.
All I can say is that there are some pretty smart people out there.
Per statement, "Astronomers think that supermassive black holes acquire most of their spin as they grow, rather than being born with it. So studying their rotation rates can yield insights into how these monsters have evolved over time."
Again science builds upon a foundation of unproven hypotheses to formulate a presumption for the possibility of black hole growth. Still we have no definitive understanding of whether black holes can grow or shrink and no definitive empirical evidence to support the conjecture that black holes can grow or shrink. And this approach is not even a consensus opinion among scientists in this field.
However I did find the statement "...general relativity states that the faster a black hole is spinning, the closer its disk can come to it..." interesting as a conceptual expectation of its mathematical calculations for the dynamics of a black hole. Yet I am not sure if there is an overriding implication being promoted by this article to suggest that these thick dust clouds hinder observation of escaping radiation. It appears this would be implying that the gravitational field of the black hole itself is not wholly responsible for preventing escaping speed of light radiation, but rather that such escaping radiation might be obscured. Interesting, but different from consensus.
An eight dimensional object where one of the dimensions is not visible, (it could consist of Absolutely Nothing), would appear to have seven dimensions.
According to Isaac Asimov, "Black holes have no hair".
Anyway, it seems logical that black holes would spin, since the stuff it sucks in would have some kind of prior motion other than directly down a radian of a motionless blob of what used to be matter. And whichever way the majority of the s#!t it sucks in is moving would be the way it would spin. For the li'l booger to be motionless would be an extraordinary situation. And the more $#!t it sucks in, the faster it would spin, if it was at the center of a spiral galaxy, where the s#!t would be largely revolving in the same orbital path.
I guess.
To some of the above:
The universes speed of light definition is not a completely defining attribute for the black hole phenomenon. That conventional definition best applies to the universe as a whole. So the idea of a black hole communicating using light must be superseded by the properties of space-time. It is not well appreciated that space-time can expand faster than light speed, as would be the case for the initial expansion of the universe, so it would be quite the challenge to describe the properties of space-time 'distortion' except by indirect means as such as the electromagnetic 'speed-of-light' equipment we are using.
Taking advantage of the artist's conception, one interesting 'gap' is the connection (process) between the incoming matter from the accretion disk (a phenomenon not full described) and the outgoing 'whatever' matter/energy that jetting out the axis.
(In my limited imagination and luck as guessing wrongly, the incoming momentum in changing to rotational momentum results in accepting matter, while ejecting matter symmetrically at right angles out from the jets. It is not easy just imagining the magnetic field spinning so rapidly that guides the jet out the narrow axis. [When I spin a basketball in a rain storm the water does not come out the axis {at least not without a superimposed electric field}.] Imagining the path of proton traveling from the accretion disk into a black hole, it all ends when it enters the black hole, but imagining the same or an equal proton changing directions and beginning anew out the axis, is puzzling. Imagining a proton being created to exit via the axis is puzzling. Imagining a high energy gamma ray creating a new proton after the jet leaves is puzzling. These are things of narrow interest and scale demanding step by step explanations, while at the opposite extreme of scale we have trails of super nova following stars created from matter spewing for eons from black hole objects.)
(The article mentioned Iron which has a novel position on the chart of the nuclides as having the minimum of binding nuclear energy; atoms lighter are known in the stars down to Iron, super novae exposing atoms heaver are also known from fission reactions. If there were other detectable atoms in the jets that would useful to know. Iron is in the right position be of some important, however I guess wildly).... see link below.
Note: (), [], {} are speculation asides meant to provoke input from those who know better.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v494/n7438/full/nature11938.html
A rapidly spinning supermassive black hole at the centre of NGC 1365
Ah Black Hole, sounds like where all the tax money goes.