Latest news with #MaxPlanckInstituteforRadioAstronomy
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
This real 'Eye of Sauron' spits out ghost particles in space. Here's what it looks like
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. For about 15 years, a powerful radio telescope on planet Earth dutifully recorded data about a location in the cosmos billions of light-years away from us — and, at last, astronomers managed to stitch together those extensive observations to reveal a full picture of what this telescope has been looking at. It's … the Eye of Sauron! Well, sort of. Though the image you're seeing bears a striking resemblance to the jarring symbol associated with the main villain in the Lord of the Rings trilogy of novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, it's actually something far more fear-inducing. At face value, at least. What you're looking at is actually a blazar, which requires a couple of layers to explain. Out in the universe, there are these things called quasars, which refer to the extremely luminous centers of active galaxies (meaning they emit a lot of electromagnetic radiation) that are powered by supermassive black holes. These galactic cores are called active galactic nuclei, or AGNs; and in fact, the monster black holes powering these phenomena can also funnel matter outward in the form of highly energetic jets of particles moving at nearly the speed of light. It's all very intense. Quasars can be so bright that they outshine the collective light of every single star in the galaxy surrounding them. Blazars, on the other hand, are pretty much quasars — except with those supermassive-black-hole-rooted jets pointing within 10 degrees of our planet. That doesn't exactly mean we're about to be obliterated by a jet, though. Remember how I said the fear remains at face value? The only reason we're seeing the jet pointing straight toward us is because of our vantage point, and this doesn't necessarily increase its danger. Still, blazars, because of this serendipitous orientation, tend to appear even brighter than the already ridiculously bright quasars. Not that it matters, but Sauron would sure love them. "When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning," Yuri Kovalev, lead author of the study and principal investigator of the Multi-messenger Studies of Extragalactic Super-colliders project at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), said in a statement. "We have never seen anything quite like it — a near-perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us." "This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more," explains Jack Livingston, a study co-author at MPIfR. "At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects — a classic optical illusion." And this particular blazar could be the one blazar to rule them all. Scientists have formed a clear image of it using observations from the Very Long Baseline Array (named PKS 1424+240), and it may very well be one of the brightest sources of high-energy gamma rays and cosmic neutrinos ever observed. Neutrinos are mind-blowing items themselves, while we're at it. They're nicknamed "ghost particles" because they're invisible, zippy bits that penetrate the entirety of our cosmos yet remain tremendously difficult to detect. Trillions of these particles are flowing through your body as you read this, but you can't tell because they don't interact with any of the particles that make up your body. They slide right through. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory near the South Pole, specifically built to pin down neutrinos, is actually the institution that discovered PKS 1424+240 in the first place because of its super high neutrino emission levels. Solving this puzzle confirms that active galactic nuclei with supermassive black holes are not only powerful accelerators of electrons, but also of protons — the origin of the observed high-energy neutrinos," concludes Kovalev. Reconstructing the spectacular blazar, according to the discovery team, also allows astronomers to peer directly into the "heart" of this jet — and that could be great news for scientists trying to understand the dynamics of these awesome objects. Kovalev explains that it confirms AGNs with supermassive black holes don't only accelerate electrons (negatively charged particles that make up atoms) but also protons. This is a big find, the researcher explains, because that explains the origin of the high-energy neutrinos PKS 1424+240 appears to be spitting out. A study about these results was published on Tuesday (Aug. 12) in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
‘Eye of Sauron' spotted in deep space
Billions of light-years away, a cosmic jet bearing a striking resemblance to the eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings is swirling at the heart of a very active galaxy. The unique cosmic body was spotted thanks to 15 years of observations using the Earth-based Very Long Baseline Ar-ray and is helping scientists better understand the anatomy of cosmic jets,powerful beams of plasma and energy that come from black holes, neutron stars, and other celestial bodies. The unique attributes of this 'Eye of Sauron' cosmic jet is detailed in a study published August 12 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. 'When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning,' Yuri Kovalev, study co-author and astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, said in a statement. 'We have never seen anything quite like it—a near-perfect toroidal [doughnut shaped] magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us.' The villanesque cosmic jet is spewing out of a blazar called PKS 1424+240. Powered by a supermassive black hole, blazars are a large type of active galaxy nucleus that belong to a class of galaxies called active galactic nuclei. Blazars are a ventral hub of power and light within these galaxies that aren't powered by stars. A blazar's black hole launches a jet of plasma that moves at roughly the speed of light and blazars. As far as blazars go, PKS 1424+240 has long puzzled astronomers. It is the brightest known blazar that emits neutrinos, or tiny subatomic particles that are so difficult to detect they are nicknamed 'ghost particles.' High energy gamma rays also radiate out from PKS 1424+240, making this unique blazar appear to glow. Even with all of these energetic gamma rays and neutrinos, the cosmic jet appeared to move much more slowly than expected. Only the fastest celestial jets were believed to power high-energy emissions like this, and not PKS 1424+240's glacial pace. Using the Very Long Baseline Ar-ray, an array of ten antennas positioned across the continental United States and in Hawaii and St Croix, researchers stitched together the incredible image of the jet coming out of the blazar, which looks unquestionably Lord of the Rings-esque. PKS 1424+240 and its jet are almost exactly aligned with the Earth. This amplifies the high-energy emissions in the jet when astronomers look at it. 'This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more,' co-author and astronomer Jack Livingston added. 'At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects—a classic optical illusion.' The rare opportunity to look at the blazar head-on allowed the team to peer directly into the heart of its stunning jet. Using polarized radio signals, the team mapped out the jet's magnetic field and structure. The magnetic field might be shaped like a spiral (called helical) or doughnut shaped (called toroidal). The magnetic field's structure likely plays a major role in how the plasma flows out of a blazar's cosmic jet. [ Related: Astronomers now know how supermassive black holes blast us with energy. ] The discovery is part of the MOJAVE program, a decades-long effort to monitor jets in active galaxies. To monitor these jets, scientists use a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). VLBI connects radio telescopes across the globe to form a giant virtual telescope roughly the size of the Earth. Connecting all of these radio telescopes provides the highest resolution available in astronomy, giving us the fine details of distant cosmic jets. 'When we started MOJAVE, the idea of one day directly connecting distant black hole jets to cosmic neutrinos felt like science fiction,' said MOJAVE co-founder Anton Zensus 'Today, our observations are making it real.' Solve the daily Crossword
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Science
- Daily Mail
Scientists are baffled after spotting the 'Eye of Sauron' in deep space
The Eye of Sauron is an integral part of the Lord of the Rings series. The flaming, floating fiery eyeball, positioned atop a dark tower in Mordor, is a symbol of the Dark Lord's all–seeing power and vigilance. Now, experts have detected a similarly terrifying vision in real life. But rather than looking for Frodo or the Ring, it seems to be peering directly at us from deep space. The image is of a phenomenon called a cosmic jet, which is an extremely powerful stream of plasma and energy emitted from celestial objects. This particular one comes from a blazar – a type of galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole. The PKS 1424+240 blazar is one of the brightest in the sky despite being located billions of light–years away. And as well as a foreboding picture, the discovery may have helped researchers solve a decades–long cosmic puzzle. The blazar has long baffled astronomers as its cosmic jet appeared to move slowly, despite it being one of the brightest sources of high–energy gammas rays and cosmic neutrinos ever observed. This contradicted the belief that only the fastest jets could be behind such exceptional brightness. Using 15 years of ultra–precise radio observations from the Very Long Baseline Array – a system of 10 radio telescopes – researchers were able to stitch together a deep image of the jet at unparalleled resolution. 'When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning,' lead author Yuri Kovalev, from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, said. 'We have never seen anything quite like it—a near–perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us.' Since the jet is aligned almost exactly in the direction of Earth, its high–energy radio emissions are dramatically amplified. 'This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more,' co–author Jack Livingston said. 'At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects—a classic optical illusion.' This head–on view also gave scientists the extremely rare opportunity to peer directly into the heart of the blazar's jet. Radio signals helped the team map out the structure of the jet's magnetic field, revealing it is likely helical (a spiral) or toroidal (doughnut–shaped). This structure likely plays a key role in accelerating particles to extreme energies, the researchers said. The findings were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Black holes are so dense and their gravitational pull is so strong that no form of radiation can escape them - not even light. They act as intense sources of gravity which hoover up dust and gas around them. Their intense gravitational pull is thought to be what stars in galaxies orbit around. How they are formed is still poorly understood. Astronomers believe they may form when a large cloud of gas up to 100,000 times bigger than the sun, collapses into a black hole. Many of these black hole seeds then merge to form much larger supermassive black holes, which are found at the centre of every known massive galaxy. Alternatively, a supermassive black hole seed could come from a giant star, about 100 times the sun's mass, that ultimately forms into a black hole after it runs out of fuel and collapses. When these giant stars die, they also go 'supernova', a huge explosion that expels the matter from the outer layers of the star into deep space.
