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NASA / CXC / KIPAC / NRAO / AUI / NSF
The main image shows radio emissions (in red-orange) and X-ray emissions (in blue) from the galaxy M87. The inset image, by Omar Ragnarsson, shows the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland.
A "super-volcano" is erupting out in the Virgo Cluster, in the form of a supermassive black hole churning away at the center of the galaxy M87. And although it looks nothing like an earthly volcano, there's a similarity in the workings of the celestial and earthly eruptions.
That similarity is the focus of an image advisory issued last week by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center. NASA's Chandra spacecraft looks at the universe in X-ray wavelengths, which are associated with the violent outbursts from black holes, smashing galaxies and supernovae. Its image of M87, which is about 50 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster, shows a tower of hot gas glowing in X-ray light (depicted in blue in the image above).
That gas should be falling inward toward the black hole as it cools. But radio observations from the Very Large Array (shown in red-orange) suggest that jets of energetic particles produced in the tumult surrounding the black hole are pushing outward, producing shock waves and dragging up the relatively cool gas.
This annotated image explains the process - but it turns out that an even better way to show what's going on is to use a video of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano's eruption in Iceland. Beginning about 18 seconds into the video, you can see pockets of hot gas blasting out from the volcano, followed by belches of dark ash.
Close-up footage of the crater at Eyjafjallajökull. You can see red glowing lava as well as volcanic bombs flying through the air. If you watch carefully you can even see the shockwaves of the eruptions in the ash cloud.
It's just such a phenomenon that is behind the towers of gas rising from M87. Which goes to show that physics is physics, whether you're in Iceland or the Virgo Cluster.
More about M87 and other black holes:
- Bizarre behavior shown by two black holes
- The most massive black hole ever measured
- Find out how stars get stolen
- What happened to M87's outer halo?
The Chandra imagery is based on 159 hours of observations in 2002 and 2005. Findings are to be reported in two papers due to appear in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. First authors of the papers are Evan Million and Norbert Werner, both of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University. Volcano video from YouTube. Tip o' the Log to Discovery News' Nicole Gugliucci, who goes into the explanation in greater depth.
Leave a Comment:
That's a great analogy. Explosive volcano..explosive central M87.
Some people say potato, some people say watermelon.
That is another awesome picture! Love it and the inset, but I am afraid the difference in the active temperatures is very different...still you accidentally touched on a very interesting point. Perhaps flowing lave, eruptions and gas expulsions have rf and x ray signatures, something that may very well have been overlooked since the advent of portable detectors of the squid variety..it could very well be plausible since gold, for instance, emanates x-rays when compressed and I am certain other compounds exhibit pyro and piezo electric effects that should be considered as early warnings of terrestial eruptions. I hope somebody headed back to classes next month has time to weigh some of the options and, if at all possible, brings on a whole new set of measurement instruments to the study of volcanoes.......you can have the credit, you put the two pictures next to each other...I would never of thought of comparing a picture of radio and x ray emmisions to a picture of particle and gas emissions......
How long will it be until the ultra progressives at MSNBC try to misinform everybody that M87 is a direct result of carbon emissions?
Comparing this to a geological event is pure stupidity considering that Earth's core is not a super-massive black hole. Comparisons between terrestrial magma ejections and this phenomena are pointless since the gravitational forces involved are obviously not going to be duplicated on Earth.
PS- Our understanding of actual physics breaks down when speaking about black-holes. We know they exist but beyond that we know nothing.
The shockwaves coming out of the volcano in the video are astounding. I never knew they were so visible. I got so absorbed in watching the video I forgot I was reading an article about a super massive black hole!
smit-o-rama, YOUR understanding of actual phsyics breaks down when speaking about black holes (and climatology). YOU know they exist, but beyond that YOU know nothing. That's probably true of climatology as well. Don't assume your ignorance is universal.
I think I see the face of Copernicus in the very center.
Nope. Thant's not Copernicus, it's Jesus. He's everywhere nowadays...;)
Who's Jesus? This is 50 million light years away not a couple of thousand years of mythology!
I'm not sure how those two are related, but obligatory "light years? THIS IS VIRGO"
"Beginning about 18 seconds into the video, you can see pockets of hot gas blasting out from the volcano, followed by belches of dark ash."
I don't think this can be true. The dark looking transparent "hot gas blasting out" does not displace the other gases and ash. Instead they form a rapid, uniformly spherical expansion. Surely they are shock waves due to released pressure &/or the explosion of combustible materials, which are "then followed by belches of dark ash" that are the actual products of the explosion. Consider this shockwave spreading over ground. You can see the ground effect but as in the volcano billowing smoke and ash are not displaced.