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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.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 01 2020, @08:19AM (1 child)
I said it before, I'll say it again: If you link to arXiv, please link to the abstract page. From the abstract page, the pdf is a single link away. From the pdf link, the abstract page can only be reached by manual link editing.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.01291 [arxiv.org]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday March 01 2020, @11:41PM
Thanks for that. Also confirms something I found nonsensical in the summary, you don't get a crater in a vacuum. The original paper never mentions craters, so it was added in the summary.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @10:29AM (1 child)
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...
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 01 2020, @03:08PM
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
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday March 02 2020, @12:26AM
Lucky we weren't there at the time.
The universe is not a safe place for people like us.
(Score: 1) by liberza on Monday March 02 2020, @12:41AM (2 children)
For reference, this is 164041865313613680000 football fields.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday March 02 2020, @02:22AM (1 child)
Which type of football field? Association at 105 metres, Australian at 135-185 metres, American at a 120 yards or Canadian at 150 yards? Perhaps you're only measuring between the goal posts, 100 yards in America due to Yale having a small field, 110 yards in Canada
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Monday March 02 2020, @04:12PM
What Is the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow?
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956