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Black Hole Burps – Help Creating The Universe?

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Using Chandra observations, astronomers have discovered one of the nearest supermassive black holes to Earth that is currently undergoing powerful outbursts. This image shows the galaxy M51 and its smaller component NGC 5195. In the close-up, a pair of arcs can be seen in the Chandra data and is evidence for outbursts from the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 5195. X-RAY: NASA/CXC/UNIV OF TEXAS/E.SCHLEGEL ET AL; OPTICAL: NASA/STS

By Irene Klotz, Discovery News, SouthFloridaReporter.com, Jan. 7, 2015 – A supermassive black hole at the center of a neighbor galaxy apparently “burped” after swallowing up nearby matter, a phenomenon that may have been instrumental in shaping the early universe, new research shows.

Scientists using NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope found two streams of X-ray emissions near the heart of NGC 5195, a small galaxy located about 27 million light-years away. The galaxy is in the process of merging with another galaxy, NGC 5194, a large spiral also known as “The Whirlpool.”

A second set of observations from the Kitt Peak National Observatory’s 0.9-meter optical telescope revealed a thin region of relatively cool hydrogen gas just beyond the outer arc of X-rays.

Scientists believe hot gas, which generated the X-ray emissions, plunged into the cooler regions, like a snowplow.

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