S Swift Satellite Discovers a New Black Hole in our Galaxy. NASA's Swift Satellite Discovers a New Black Hole in our Galaxy NASA's Swift satellite recently detected a rising tide of high-energy X-rays from a source toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The outburst, produced by a rare X-ray nova, announced the presence of a previously unknown stellar-mass black hole. "Bright X-ray novae are so rare that they're essentially once-a-mission events and this is the first one Swift has seen," said Neil Gehrels, the mission's principal investigator, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This is really something we've been waiting for. " An X-ray nova is a short-lived X-ray source that appears suddenly, reaches its emission peak in a few days and then fades out over a period of months. The rapidly brightening source triggered Swift's Burst Alert Telescope twice on the morning of Sept. 16, and once again the next day.
"The pattern we're seeing is observed in X-ray novae where the central object is a black hole. Related Links: Field Guide to X-ray Astronomy :: Dark Matter Mystery. Discovering the X-Ray universe Colossal Clouds of Hot Gas The "X-ray universe" refers to the universe as observed with telescopes designed to detect X-rays. X-rays are produced in the cosmos when matter is heated to millions of degrees. Such temperatures occur where high magnetic fields, or extreme gravity, or explosive forces, hold sway. Comparison of optical image from La Palma & B.McNamara (left) and X-ray imagefrom Chandra (right) of the Hydra A cluster of galaxies. Above is an example of one of the largest cosmic X-ray sources. X-ray telescopes can also trace the hot gas from an exploding star or detect X-rays from matter swirling as close as 90 kilometers from the event horizon of a stellar black hole. The Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched by Space Shuttle Columbia in 1999, can better define the hot, turbulent regions of space.
X-ray Black Hole Revealed By Stealthy Nova Star | Video. Satellite detects new black hole in our galaxy. On September 16, 2012, NASA’s Swift satellite caught an x-ray outburst, believed to have come a flood of gas plunging toward a previously unknown black hole. This new black hole in our Milky Way galaxy has been designated as Swift J1745-26 by astronomers. Black holes such as this one are thought to be common in our galaxy, but we don’t see very many of them. This is the first one discovered by the Swift satellite. The video above – from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center – shows how Swift made the discovery. This black hole has a sun-like companion star.
Gas flowing from the companion collects into a disk around the black hole. Normally, this gas would steadily spiral inward. Often when astronomers speak of black holes, they are speaking of supermassive objects thought to be located at the center of most galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Astronomers do now study about a dozen stellar-mass black hole candidates in our Milky Way, including Cygnus X-1 and now Swift J1745-26. The Swift satellite discovers a new black hole in our galaxy.
NASA’s Swift satellite recently detected a rising tide of high-energy X-rays from a source toward the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The outburst, produced by a rare X-ray nova, announced the presence of a previously unknown stellar-mass black hole. “Bright X-ray novae are so rare that they’re essentially once-a-mission events, and this is the first one Swift has seen,” said Neil Gehrels from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “This is really something we’ve been waiting for.”
An X-ray nova is a short-lived X-ray source that appears suddenly, reaches its emission peak in a few days, and then fades out over a period of months. The outburst arises when a torrent of stored gas suddenly rushes toward one of the most compact objects known, either a neutron star or a black hole. The rapidly brightening source triggered Swift’s Burst Alert Telescope twice on the morning of September 16, and once again the next day. X-ray binary. Artist's impression of an X-ray Binary X-ray binaries are a class of binary stars that are luminous in X-rays. The X-rays are produced by matter falling from one component, called the donor (usually a relatively normal star), to the other component, called the accretor, which is compact: a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole.
The infalling matter releases gravitational potential energy, up to several tenths of its rest mass, as X-rays. (Hydrogen fusion releases only about 0.7 percent of rest mass.) Classification[edit] X-ray binaries are further subdivided into several (sometimes overlapping) subclasses, that perhaps reflect the underlying physics better. Low-mass X-ray binary[edit] A low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) is a binary star where one of the components is either a black hole or neutron star. Intermediate-mass X-ray binary[edit] An intermediate-mass X-ray binary (IMXB) is a binary star system where one of the components is a neutron star or a black hole.
Microquasar[edit]