NASA : Hubble Spies the Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 4394 .- Telescopio Espacial Hubble, espía a la Galaxia NGC 4394

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-spies-the-barred-spiral-galaxy-ngc-4394

Discovered in 1784 by the German–British astronomer William Herschel, NGC 4394 is a barred spiral galaxy situated about 55 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy lies in the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) and is considered to be a member of the Virgo Cluster.

NGC 4394 is the archetypal barred spiral galaxy, with bright spiral arms emerging from the ends of a bar that cuts through the galaxy’s central bulge. These arms are peppered with young blue stars, dark filaments of cosmic dust, and bright, fuzzy regions of active star formation. At the center of NGC 4394 lies a region of ionized gas known as a low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER). LINERs are active regions that display a characteristic set of emission lines in their spectra— mostly from weakly ionized atoms of oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur.

Although LINER galaxies are relatively common, it’s still unclear where the energy comes from to ionize the gas. In most cases it is thought to be the influence of a black hole at the center of the galaxy, but it could also be the result of a high level of star formation. In the case of NGC 4394, it is likely that gravitational interaction with a nearby neighbor has caused gas to flow into the galaxy’s central region, providing a new reservoir of material to fuel the black hole or to make new stars.

Text credit: European Space Agency
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

Last Updated: May 6, 2016

Editor: Ashley Morrow

Tags:  Galaxies, Goddard Space Flight Center, Hubble Space Telescope, Image of the Day, Universe,

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Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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NASA : Most Earth-Like Worlds Have Yet to Be Born, According to Theoretical Study .- La mayoría de los mundos similares a la Tierra aún no se han nacen, Según Estudio teórico

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Tierra llegó temprano a la fiesta en el Universo en evolución. Según un nuevo estudio teórico, cuando nuestro sistema solar nació hace 4.6 millones de años, sólo el ocho por ciento de los planetas potencialmente habitables que formarán jamás en el universo existía. Y, el partido no se acabará cuando el sol se funde en otros 6 mil millones de años. La mayor parte de los planetas - 92 por ciento - aún no se han llevado.
Esta conclusión se basa en una evaluación de los datos recogidos por el telescopio espacial Hubble de la NASA y la espacial Kepler observatorio planeta-caza prolífico.
"Nuestra motivación principal fue comprender el lugar de la Tierra en el contexto del resto del universo", dijo el autor del estudio, Peter Behroozi del Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) en Baltimore, Maryland, "En comparación con todos los planetas que nunca formarán en el universo, la Tierra es en realidad muy pronto ".

More information.......
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/most-earth-like-worlds-have-yet-to-be-born-according-to-theoretical-study

This is an artist's impression of innumerable Earth-like planets that have yet to be born over the next trillion years in the evolving universe.

Credits: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

 

Looking far away and far back in time, Hubble has given astronomers a "family album" of galaxy observations that chronicle the universe's star formation history as galaxies grew. The data show that the universe was making stars at a fast rate 10 billion years ago, but the fraction of the universe's hydrogen and helium gas that was involved was very low. Today, star birth is happening at a much slower rate than long ago, but there is so much leftover gas available that the universe will keep cooking up stars and planets for a very long time to come.

"There is enough remaining material [after the big bang] to produce even more planets in the future, in the Milky Way and beyond," added co-investigator Molly Peeples of STScI.

Kepler's planet survey indicates that Earth-sized planets in a star's habitable zone, the perfect distance that could allow water to pool on the surface, are ubiquitous in our galaxy. Based on the survey, scientists predict that there should be 1 billion Earth-sized worlds in the Milky Way galaxy at present, a good portion of them presumed to be rocky. That estimate skyrockets when you include the other 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.

This leaves plenty of opportunity for untold more Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone to arise in the future. The last star isn't expected to burn out until 100 trillion years from now. That's plenty of time for literally anything to happen on the planet landscape. 

The researchers say that future Earths are more likely to appear inside giant galaxy clusters and also in dwarf galaxies, which have yet to use up all their gas for building stars and accompanying planetary systems. By contrast, our Milky Way galaxy has used up much more of the gas available for future star formation. 

A big advantage to our civilization arising early in the evolution of the universe is our being able to use powerful telescopes like Hubble to trace our lineage from the big bang through the early evolution of galaxies. The observational evidence for the big bang and cosmic evolution, encoded in light and other electromagnetic radiation, will be all but erased away 1 trillion years from now due to the runaway expansion of space. Any far-future civilizations that might arise will be largely clueless as to how or if the universe began and evolved.

The results will appear in the October 20 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington.

For images and more information visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

http://hubblesite.org/news/2015/35

 

Donna Weaver / Ray Villard

Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

dweaver@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu

Last Updated: Oct. 20, 2015

Editor: Karl Hille

Tags:  Distant Planets, Goddard Space Flight Center, Hubble Space Telescope, Kepler and K2, Universe,

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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NASA: Stormy Seas in Sagittarius .- Mares tempestuosos en Sagitario

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido una espectacular fotografía  de una gigantescas tormentas en la Constelación de Sagitario, captadas por el Telelscopio Espacial Hubble, la imagen corresponde al centro mismo de la Nebulosa de la Laguna.

NASA, nos dice: "Algunas de las vistas más impresionantes del Universo son creados por nebulosas -, nubes brillantes de gas caliente. Esta nueva imagen del telescopio espacial de la NASA / ESA Hubble muestra el centro de la Nebulosa de la Laguna, un objeto con un nombre engañosamente tranquilo, en la constelación de Sagitario. La región está llena de intensos vientos de estrellas calientes, batiendo embudos de gas, y la formación de estrellas enérgica, todo incrustado dentro de una niebla intrincada de gas y polvo a oscuras......"

More information...

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/stormy-seas-in-sagittarius

Some of the most breathtaking views in the Universe are created by nebulae — hot, glowing clouds of gas. This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the center of the Lagoon Nebula, an object with a deceptively tranquil name, in the constellation of Sagittarius. The region is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Trauger (Jet Propulson Laboratory)

Last Updated: Aug. 6, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff

Tags:  Hubble Space Telescope, Image of the Day, Nebulae, Universe

 NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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NASA - Monster Black Holes

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› Chandra's Flickr photoset
 

 The black hole at the center of this galaxy is part of a survey of 18 of the biggest black holes in the universe. This large elliptical galaxy is in the center of the galaxy cluster PKS 0745-19, which is located about 1.3 billion light years from Earth.. X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in purple and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope are in yellow.

The researchers found that these black holes may be about ten times more massive than previously thought, with at least ten of them weighing between 10 and 40 billion times the mass of the sun.

All of the potential "ultramassive" black holes found in this study lie in galaxies at the centers of galaxy clusters containing huge amounts of hot gas. This hot gas produces the diffuse X-ray emission seen in the image. Outbursts powered by the central black holes create cavities in the gas preventing it from cooling and forming enormous numbers of stars. To generate the outbursts, the black holes must swallow large amounts of mass. Because the largest black holes can swallow the most mass and power the biggest outbursts, ultramassive black holes had already been predicted to exist to explain some of the most powerful outbursts seen.

In addition to the X-rays from Chandra, the new study also uses radio data from the NSF's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA) and the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) and infrared data from the 2 Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS). These results were published [link to press release] in the July 2012 issue of The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford/Hlavacek-Larrondo, J. et al; Optical: NASA/STScI

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› Chandra's Flickr photoset

 

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Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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NASA - Spiral Galaxy NGC 3627

 

The spiral galaxy NGC 3627 is located about 30 million light years from Earth. This composite image includes X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red), and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope (yellow). The inset shows the central region, which contains a bright X-ray source that is likely powered by material falling onto a supermassive black hole.

A search using archival data from previous Chandra observations of a sample of 62 nearby galaxies has shown that 37 of the galaxies, including NGC 3627, contain X-ray sources in their centers. Most of these sources are likely powered by central supermassive black holes. The survey, which also used data from the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxy Survey, found that seven of the 37 sources are new supermassive black hole candidates.

Confirming previous Chandra results, this study finds the fraction of galaxies found to be hosting supermassive black holes is much higher than found with optical searches. This shows the ability of X-ray observations to find black holes in galaxies where relatively low-level black hole activity has either been hidden by obscuring material or washed out by the bright optical light of the galaxy.

The combined X-ray and infrared data suggest that the nuclear activity in a galaxy is not necessarily related to the amount of star-formation in the galaxy, contrary to some early claims. In contrast, these new results suggest that the mass of the supermassive black hole and the rate at which the black hole accretes matter are both greater for galaxies with greater total masses.

A paper describing these results was published in the April 10, 2011 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. The authors are Catherine Grier and Smita Mathur of The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH; Himel GHosh of CNRS/CEA-Saclay in Guf-sur-Yvette, France and Laura Ferrarese from Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Victoria, Canada.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

Credits: NASA/CXC/Ohio State Univ./C.Grier et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI, ESO/WFI; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech

› Read more/access all images
› Chandra's Flickr photoset

 

 

J.D. Harrington, 202-358-0321
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

Janet Anderson, 256-544-0034
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
janet.l.anderson@nasa.gov

Megan Watzke 617-496-7998
Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu

 NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

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Astronomía: Cerca de un Agujero Negro.- Galaxia M87

ABOUT THIS IMAGE: ACERCA DE ESTA IMAGEN

The monstrous elliptical galaxy M87 is the home of several trillion stars, a supermassive black hole, and a family of 15,000 globular star clusters.

M87 is the dominant galaxy at the center of the neighboring Virgo cluster of galaxies, which contains some 2,000 galaxies.

Amid the smooth, yellow population of older stars, the two features that stand out most in this Hubble Space Telescope image of M87 are its soft blue jet and the myriad of starlike globular clusters scattered throughout the image.

The jet is a black-hole-powered stream of material that is being ejected from the core of the galaxy. As gaseous material from the center of the galaxy accretes onto the black hole, the resultant energy released produces a fire-hose stream of subatomic particles that are accelerated to velocities near the speed of light.

Being in the center of the Virgo cluster of galaxies, M87 may have accumulated some of its globular clusters by gravitationally pulling them from nearby dwarf galaxies that seem to be devoid of globulars today.

The 120,000-light-year-diameter galaxy lies at a distance of 54 million light-years from the Sun in the spring constellation Virgo.

This image was made from data taken in 2003 and 2006 with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The image is a composite of individual filtered data that cover the visible and infrared portions of the spectrum.

Object Name: M87

Image Type: Astronomical

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Acknowledgment: P. Cote (Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics) and E. Baltz (Stanford University)

 La observación más profunda de un hoyo negro determina la distancia máxima a la que puede llegar la materia sin ser consumida.

FECHA DE PUBLICACIÓN:2012-10-05     AUTOR: Rafael Ochoa

Astrónomos han observado lo más cerca posible a un hoyo negro supermasivo que se encuentra más allá de la Vía Láctea, estimando así la máxima distancia a la que puede acercarse la materia sin que el agujero lo succione.

Este hoyo negro tiene una masa estimada de seis mil 200 millones de Soles, y se encuentra al centro de la galaxia denominada M87.

Los investigadores lograron esto al unir cuatro satélites radiales ubicados en California, Arizona y Hawai, para después construir un telescopio radial con la suficiente capacidad de estudiar el centro de esa galaxia.

Esto permitió a los científicos hacer una medida sin precedentes: determinar que la propulsión de partículas de alta velocidad disparándose desde el núcleo del M87, genera un radio 5.5 veces más grande de lo estimado.

Esta nueva medida le da un volumen relativamente pequeño al hoyo en el centro de la galaxia M87, pues la concentración de masa en esa región (el hoyo negro) debe de ser siempre más pequeño que su fuente de energía.

Un hoyo negro es una región específica del espacio donde existe una gran concentración de masa cuya energía genera un campo gravitatorio del cual ninguna forma de materia, ni siquiera la luz, puede escapar.

El objetivo del estudio era inferir las propiedades del giro angular del hoyo, así como la rotación del disco de acreción, la materia oscilatoria que rodea al agujero negro para proveerle de combustible.

El equipo, del Observatorio Haystack del Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts (MIT, por sus siglas en inglés), usó un modelo que asume que el tamaño de la región es igual a la órbita máxima que la materia puede tener sin ser absorbida rápidamente por el hoyo negro.

En otras palabras, la distancia de la región es igual a la distancia que la materia puede llegar sin ser consumida por esa concentración de energía.

El estudio se publicó en Science.

National Geographic.

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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