National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Monday, November 23, 2009

Photo: Black Hole "Hearts" Warm Galaxies, Control Growth


Email to a Friend	<< Back to Full Story

The elliptical galaxy M84 is surrounded by bubbles of hot gas nested inside each other like Russian stacking dolls.

The bubbles are evidence that the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center is regularly pumping out jets of plasma, like a human heart pumping blood, astronomers said in a November 2008 study.

The released energy controls the black hole's growth as well as nearby star birth.

X-ray image courtesy NASA/CXC/MPE/A.Finoguenov et al.; radio image courtesy NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO/R.A.Laing et al.; optical image courtesy SDSS