Strange Eye-Shaped Galaxy Has Black-Hole Iris

[The Straight Story]

Not to be outdone by the 10th anniversary of its sibling, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope delivered this crazy looking eye-shaped galaxy image.

The iris of the eye is actually a ring of stars surrounding the area around an enormous, invisible black hole that is around 100 million times the mass of the sun and far larger than our galaxy’s central black hole. The stars show up white and the space around the black hole is blue in this color-coded infrared image.

“The ring itself is a fascinating object worthy of study because it is forming stars at a very high rate,” Kartik Sheth, an astronomer at NASA’s Spitzer Science Center, said in a press release.

In infrared light, shorter wavelengths look blue, and longer wavelengths appear red. Astronomers think the smaller blue galaxy peeking through the spiral arms may have actually punched a hole in the larger galaxy.

Spitzer captured this image during the cold part of its mission, which lasted more than five years and ended in May when the telescope ran out of coolant to keep some of its instruments chilled. It will start the warm part of its mission with the remaining working instruments within weeks.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/eyegalaxy/

[zonkers]

1. This pic is fucking nuts. Wow.

[redqueen]

2. Isn't it theorized that most galaxies have black holes at their centers?

It is interesting how big that one is, and so is the theory about the smaller galaxy punching a hole in the larger one.

[Soylent Brice]

8. yup. the supermassive black holes:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0406_050406_blackholes.html

[LostInAnomie]

3. One of the regrets about the era I was born in...

... is that I'm not going to live long enough to hear about all the amazing discoveries that will be made when we can fully investigate the wonder of black holes.

They are truly marvels of physics.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Visine would get that red out. n/t

[zbdent]

21. can we freeze Ben Stein and send him off to correct it?

[SteppingRazor]

5. Is it just me, or does that look like the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings? n/t

[Beetwasher]

6. Holy Shit, It's They Eye Of Horus!!

That's freaky!!

[ShamelessHussy]

7. That was the first thing I thought of, too.

Very cool, coincidence!

[kenfrequed]

13. It's a better match

To the eye of hourus than it is to 90% of the virgin mary's seen all over the world. A neato coincidence.

And I have no idea what 'teh mote in gods eye' looks like, save for the cover art on a Niven book.

[redqueen]

16. It's somewhat similar, yeah. (nt)

[TheKentuckian]

24. Dying galaxy or an immature one?

[TrogL]

9. It's the Mote in God's Eye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye

[johnaries]

17. On one hand, maybe. On the other, maybe not. On the Gripping hand..

Watch out for those "statues"! :evilgrin:

[Fumesucker]

22. IIRC, the Mote in God's Eye was a yellow, sunlike star that was apparently very close..

To a red supergiant star similar to Betelgeuse, at least from the perspective of New Caledonia, where the story begins, where the two objects are set in front of the Coalsack Nebula, a very dark cloud of dust and gas that actually exists in our sky.

This is a galaxy and a supermassive black hole, quite different and far larger objects.

[kestrel91316]

10. That is clearly the Eye of Horus, lol. I guess the Egyptians must have been

onto something.

[tblue37]

11. Or on something. nt

[Bill McBlueState]

12. "In infrared light,

shorter wavelengths look blue, and longer wavelengths appear red."

Well, they don't look anything, if they're infrared. The color scheme is a choice made by the astronomer who processed the image. It's a reasonable choice, but still a choice.

[redqueen]

15. No, it's red and blue when visible light is involved.

So the nomenclature sticks, even when there is no visible light involved.

[edbermac]

14. It's Nagilum!

Watch your ass, Jean-Luc.

[Kalyke]

18. The Eye of Ra!

[Number23]

19. Beautiful. TERRIFYING.

I love it. :)

[Fumesucker]

23. I find it awe inspiring but far from terrifying..

And yes, I love it too..

[shireen]

20. wow! very cool. thanks for posting. nt