05-October-2006, 10:05 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2005
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The Nature Of Black Hole Jets
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NASA and Italian scientists using Swift have for the first time determined what the particle jets streaming from black holes are made of.
Black hole particle jets are commonly seen in quasars and other celestial objects, shooting off at nearly light speed. According to the Swift team, these jets appear to be made of protons and electrons, solving a mystery as old as the discovery of jets themselves in the 1970s. The jets observed by Swift contain about the mass of Jupiter if it were pulverised and blasted out into intergalactic space
Black hole particle jets typically escape the confines of their host galaxies and flow for hundreds of thousands of light years. They are a primary means of redistributing matter and energy in the universe. They are a key to understanding galaxy formation and are tied to numerous cosmic mysteries, such as the origin of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays.
"Black hole jets are one of the great paradoxes in astronomy. How is it that black holes, so efficient at pulling matter in, can also accelerate matter away at near light speed? We still don't know how these jets form, but at least we now have a solid idea about what they're made of" - Rita Sambruna of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, Greenbelt, Md.
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