Tag Archives: black holes

Black holes singing in space

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Invader Xan

One of the things which particularly caught my eye in this week’s Carnival of Space was that article from the quite marvellous Science in a Can about a singing black hole! This black hole is about 250 million light years away … Continue reading →

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Carnival of Space 262

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Invader Xan

Ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon, I bid you welcome to this week’s edition of Carnival of Space. With Curiosity’s daredevil landing on Mars this week, there’s a distinctly martian flavour about this carnival! Whether this is your first time … Continue reading →

Posted in chemistry, space | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Black hole nucleosynthesis

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Invader Xan

If I had to pick a handful of favourite things in all of physics, black holes and nuclear fusion would be among them. Hands down. This interesting little paper which I stumbled across earlier (via a link to the APS … Continue reading →

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Waltzing behemoths

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Invader Xan

A supermassive black hole is rather like a gravitational version of the Incredible Hulk. Massive, mean, able to take on anything thrown at it, and virtually unstoppable. While the smaller black holes may form when a massive but otherwise normal … Continue reading →

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Singularly beautiful

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Invader Xan

Everything in the Universe likes to go in circles. Moons orbit planets, planets orbit stars, stars orbit other stars — and in each case all parts of the system are interrelated. The speed at which one star orbits another, for … Continue reading →

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An iris of stars

Posted on August 13, 2009 by Invader Xan

Around 50 million light years away, lies a rather lovely spiral galaxy known as NGC 1097. Seen in infrared light by Spitzer in this image, it reminds me a little of an egyptian Eye of Horus. That pupil however, is … Continue reading →

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Supermassive!

Posted on July 14, 2009 by Invader Xan

Just the concept of black holes is captivating, isn’t it? No wonder they’re central to the plotlines of so many movies and sci-fi stories. The idea of an object so dense that light can’t travel fast enough to escape from … Continue reading →

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Space Ghost?

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Invader Xan

Ghost hunting isn’t typically the sort of thing you’d expect the Chandra space telescope to be doing. Evidently though, it’s rather good at it! Specifically an x-ray ghost betraying the presence of a galaxy’s supermassive black hole. Feel free to … Continue reading →

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You are now leaving the Milky Way

Posted on May 29, 2009 by Invader Xan

It’s bad luck if a black hole crosses your path. Actually it’s very bad luck, particularly if you happen to be a star like SDSS J090745.0+024507. Known by some as “The Outcast Star”, it had the misfortune tens of millions … Continue reading →

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Sagittarius A*

Posted on September 5, 2008 by Invader Xan

It’s funny… Sagittarius A* seems to hold the same fascination for me these days that the Sun used to hold when I was just a kid. I’ve been meaning on writing something about this for a while now, and seeing … Continue reading →

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