Astronomy - June 2015

ASTRONEWS

6.5 – 9.5 – 11.4 11.5 – 13.413.5 – 15.415.5 – 17.417.5 – 20.4> 20.

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Less than 3.5 – 6.

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FAST

FAC T

ASTRONOMY

: MICHAEL E. BAKICH AND ROEN KELLY, AFTER NOAA

12 ASTRONOMY • JUNE 2015

LHC REBOOT. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had a minor short circuit that delayed its restart in March. Several years of

upgrades will soon let the accelerator hit energies never before seen, refining the Higgs boson and probing dark matter.

BRIEFCASE

SUPERNOVA IN THE MAKING

Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s

Very Large Telescope discovered a white dwarf pair hid-

den inside planetary nebula Henize 2-428. The couple

orbit each other so closely that within 700 million years

they will spiral into one massive star, triggering a super-

nova explosion. Merging white dwarfs have long been a

theoretical cause of type Ia supernovae, but this is the first

time astronomers have seen such a pair on the road to

their destruction. Their study appeared in Nature March 5.

• BATTERED MARS METEORITE
  A martian meteorite nicknamed “Black Beauty” gives
  scientists a chance to study a piece of Mars’ surface
  up close. Most such space rocks are hardened volcanic
  material, but this one appears to be uniquely repre-
  sentative of Mars’ crust. It contains multiple rock types
  mashed together by the strain of the many impacts
  that scar Mars’ face, and the rock’s spectra, according to
  research published May 15 in the journal Icarus, matches
  that taken by Mars orbiters of the planet’s surface.


• 
  

  SAFETY ZONE
  In papers from the August 2014 and February 2015
  issues of the Publications of the Astronomical Society
  of Japan, astronomers using the Atacama Large
  Millimeter/submillimeter Array announced seeing
  organic molecules safely residing around the super-
  massive black hole at the center of spiral galaxy M77.
  Previously, scientists thought the violent radiation envi-
  ronment around black holes would destroy complex
  molecules, but they instead appear to be shielded by
  dense regions of dust and gas. — Korey Haynes

  
  

S

cientists using the Very Large Array

(VLA) in New Mexico are discover-

ing that a process that can termi-

nate star-formation activity in rare

radio-bright galaxies also occurs in their

less extreme brethren. For years, radio

astronomers had observed powerful jets of

material from supermassive black holes at

the center of radio-bright galaxies plowing

through the surrounding gas and squelch-

ing star formation. But no one knew if

the same situation was occurring in more

common galaxies as they stopped actively

producing stars.

To find out, a team of astronomers led

by Chris Harrison of Durham University

in the United Kingdom began studying

radio-quiet galaxies that appeared to have

active supermassive black holes at their

centers. J1430+1339, also known as the

Teacup Galaxy, provided some insight.

The VLA revealed “bubbles” extending

30,000 to 40,000 light-years from the

galaxy and jet-like structures closer in,

telling astronomers that the Teacup’s cen-

tral supermassive black hole is stopping

star formation in a fashion similar to that

found in a radio-bright galaxy.

“This ‘storm’ in the Teacup means

that the jet-driven process in which a

black hole is removing or destroying star-

formation material may be much more

typical than we knew before and could

be a crucial piece in the puzzle of under-

standing how the galaxies we see around

us were formed,” Harrison says. His team’s

study appeared in the February 10 issue of

The Astrophysical Journal. — Karri Ferron

RADIO-FAINT GALAXY SURPRISES

BY STOPPING STAR FORMATION

It’s commonly accepted that supermassive

black holes emit winds powerful enough to

blow away their host galaxy’s supply of gas,

shutting down star formation and strongly

affecting galactic evolution. But observing

these winds directly is tricky. Researchers

announced February 19 that they had suc-

cessfully used NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopy

Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and ESA’s XMM-

Newton telescope to observe high- and low-

energy X-rays, respectively, blasting material

out of black hole PDS 456. Together, the two

telescopes delivered observational proof that

powerful winds blow in all directions from

black holes, with enough force to blow out gas

and quench star formation. — K. H.

A mighty black hole wind

AVERAGE NUMBER OF CLEAR DAYS IN JUNE

STAR STOPPAGE.

In this composite

image of the Teacup

Galaxy, red and yellow

radio data reveal jets

launched by the cen-

tral supermassive black

hole that are destroy-

ing the star-forming

gas nearby, shown

in blue. C. HARRISON/A.

THOMPSON/B. SAXTON/NRAO/AUI/

NSF/NASA

SHUTDOWN. New data from two X-ray observato-

ries prove that black hole winds are nearly spherical

and strong enough to blow gas, the fuel of star forma-

tion, completely out of their host galaxy. NASA/JPL-CALTECH

Most observers

use the clear

nights in June

to observe star

clusters and

nebulae along

the Milky Way.