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posted by martyb on Sunday March 01 2020, @08:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the Memo:Four-pounds-of-C4-may-be-a-little...excessive. dept.

A new study tells the cataclysmic tale of an explosion 390 Million light years away, the largest ever detected by a factor of five, that tore through the heart of the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster (archive) leaving a crater fifteen Milky Way galaxies wide.

[Study lead author Simona Giacintucci, of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C] and her colleagues think the source was a supermassive black hole in one of the cluster's constituent galaxies — specifically, jets of radiation and material spewing from the light-gobbling monster, which are powered by inflowing gas and dust.

The theory that the massive gap was created by a ridiculously large explosion "hundreds of thousands of times greater than explosions typically seen in galaxy clusters" powered by a black hole and accelerating material outward at almost the speed of light was postulated in 2016 but was not confirmed.

Giacintucci and her colleagues just made that determination, after analyzing additional X-ray data from Chandra and Europe's XMM-Newton space telescope, as well as radio information gathered by the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India.

Researchers indicate that the black-hole-fueled fireworks in Ophiuchus have, however, ended with "no evidence of ongoing activity"

The paper was published February 27th in The Astrophysical Journal
You can read a free preprint of the paper here.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @10:29AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @10:29AM (#964853)

    Isn't it rich?
    Are we a pair?
    Me here at last on the ground
    You in mid-air
    Send in the clowns

    Isn't it bliss?
    Don't you approve?
    One who keeps tearing around
    One who can't move
    But where are the clowns?
    Send in the clowns

    Just when I stopped
    Opening doors
    Finally knowing
    The one that I wanted was yours
    Making my entrance again with my usual flair

    Sure of my lines
    No one is there

    Don't you love farce?
    My fault, I fear
    I thought that you'd want what I want-
    Sorry my dear
    But where are the clowns?
    Quick, send in the clowns
    Don't bother they're here

    Isn't it rich?
    Isn't it queer?
    Losing my timing this late
    In my career?
    And where are the clowns?
    There ought to be clowns
    Well, maybe next year...

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  • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 01 2020, @03:08PM

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 01 2020, @03:08PM (#964907) Journal

    That's....random.
     
    In a bit of minor synchronicity, I learned and sang that song as an 'exam' for a voice class once.

    --
    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды