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NASA Announces Discovery of 30-Year-Old Black Hole

Posted by Soulskill on from the give-or-take-50-million-years dept.

broknstrngz tips news of an announcement today from NASA about the discovery of a black hole in the M100 galaxy, roughly 50 million light-years from Earth. The discovery is notable because, if confirmed, it's now the youngest known black hole, born from the remains of a supernova we observed in 1979. Bad Astronomer Phil Plait explains why scientists think it collapsed to a black hole, rather than a neutron star: "The way a neutron star emits X-rays is different than that of a black hole. As a neutron star cools, the X-ray emission will fade. However, a black hole blasts out X-rays as material falls in; that stuff forms a flat disk, called an accretion disk, around the black hole. As this matter falls onto the newly created black hole, it gets heated to unimaginable temperatures — millions of degrees — and blasts out X-rays. In that case, the X-rays emitted would be steady over time. What astronomers have found is that the X-rays from SN1979c have been steady in brightness over observations from 1995 – 2007. This is very strong evidence that the star’s core did indeed collapse into a black hole." He also warns that we're not certain quite yet, and we'll have to keep our eye on it to make sure it's not a pulsar.

5 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. It was 30 years old, 50 million years ago. by fbartho · · Score: -1, Redundant

    It was 30 years old, 50 million years ago. I guess the claim re: young black hole is more due to the age apparent in the images we're capturing now, then the actual age of the black hole.

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    Gravity Sucks
  2. Slow news day? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    That news is 50000030 years old

  3. Re:Because everyone else will say it too... by Fluffeh · · Score: 1, Redundant

    It's not that hard to figure out. We're looking at what a 30-year old black hole looks like, regardless of how long it took that light to get here.

    Yeah, totally agree. Can even remove the actual age of the object by saying:
    We are looking at the birth and first thirty years of data after the black hole formed.

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  4. Re:Because everyone else will say it too... by MightyMartian · · Score: 0, Redundant

    It's 50,000,030 years old now, but what we're observing is a 30 year old black hole.

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    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  5. Obviously, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    It's 50000030 years old.