The Universe's Brightest Lights Have Some Dark Origins

The Universe's Brightest Lights Have Some Dark Origins

Did you know some of the brightest sources of light in the sky come from black holes in the centers of galaxies? It sounds a little contradictory, but it’s true! They may not look bright to our eyes, but satellites have spotted oodles of them across the universe. 

One of those satellites is our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi has found thousands of these kinds of galaxies in the 10 years it’s been operating, and there are many more out there!

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Black holes are regions of space that have so much gravity that nothing - not light, not particles, nada - can escape. Most galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers - these are black holes that are hundreds of thousands to billions of times the mass of our sun - but active galactic nuclei (also called “AGN” for short, or just “active galaxies”) are surrounded by gas and dust that’s constantly falling into the black hole. As the gas and dust fall, they start to spin and form a disk. Because of the friction and other forces at work, the spinning disk starts to heat up.

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The disk’s heat gets emitted as light - but not just wavelengths of it that we can see with our eyes. We see light from AGN across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from the more familiar radio and optical waves through to the more exotic X-rays and gamma rays, which we need special telescopes to spot.

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About one in 10 AGN beam out jets of energetic particles, which are traveling almost as fast as light. Scientists are studying these jets to try to understand how black holes - which pull everything in with their huge amounts of gravity - somehow provide the energy needed to propel the particles in these jets.

The Universe's Brightest Lights Have Some Dark Origins

Many of the ways we tell one type of AGN from another depend on how they’re oriented from our point of view. With radio galaxies, for example, we see the jets from the side as they’re beaming vast amounts of energy into space. Then there’s blazars, which are a type of AGN that have a jet that is pointed almost directly at Earth, which makes the AGN particularly bright.  

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Our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has been searching the sky for gamma ray sources for 10 years. More than half (57%) of the sources it has found have been blazars. Gamma rays are useful because they can tell us a lot about how particles accelerate and how they interact with their environment.

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So why do we care about AGN? We know that some AGN formed early in the history of the universe. With their enormous power, they almost certainly affected how the universe changed over time. By discovering how AGN work, we can understand better how the universe came to be the way it is now.

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Fermi’s helped us learn a lot about the gamma-ray universe over the last 10 years. Learn more about Fermi and how we’re celebrating its accomplishments all year.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

More Posts from Chaos3612 and Others

6 years ago

Things to bring back in books:

Chapter titles

Actually having a synopsis on the back instead of reviews no one will read

6 years ago
Maybe This Was A Dumb Idea…
Maybe This Was A Dumb Idea…

maybe this was a dumb idea…

5 years ago
Echoes

Echoes

I made this painting for the Spellbinders gallery show at @gallerynucleus 💕✨ The opening is on 23rd, if you are in LA then come check it out. I’ll be there signing my new books and also holding a workshop ✨


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6 years ago

And then use them for super and subindexes, of course

chaos3612 - Chaotic Dynamics

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6 years ago

Anyone else constantly on edge because we are in the final stages of late capitalism and these next couple of decades are gonna be make or break for the western world, and this just happens to coincide with the part of my life where I’m supposed to make something of myself :/

6 years ago

when simone de beauvoir said “i’m reliving it, neutralizing it, and transforming it into an inoffensive past that i can keep in my heart without either disowning it or suffering from it. that’s not easy. it’s at once painful and poetic.”

5 years ago

Abortion - destroy a life

Let me tell you what happens when abortion becomes illegal.

A mother is forced to go through with a pregnancy that she never wanted. She is constantly shamed and cussed at by society and her own family for ever wanting an abortion. This child once born is often used as a pawn against her. She is manipulated into staying in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship/marriage, all for the benefit of the baby. She is forced to throw away all of her goals, dreams and has to care for her newborn despite her personal trauma.

As the child gets older, it starts to understand. Mommy isin’t crying because she fell over, she hates her life. Mom isin’t being a bitch because she only cares about her self, she over worries about you in fear of you repeating her mistakes that she never told you about. Mom was never lying to you, she was protecting you from the ugly truth. The truth that was inevitable to come out.

The truth that makes you realise how unwanted you were. How you were only needed as a tool of manipulation, a litteral weapon against your own mother. The realisation of how your single existence ruined the life of the person you love the most. Thoughts that mess you up mentally and make you hate yourself.

And honestly? I cannot wish that life upon my worst of enemies. I would gladly give up my life so my mother could have had hers.

Stop telling women what to do with their bodies when it is already the hardest decision she will ever have to make.

~ sincerely, the child of a forced pregnancy.


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6 years ago
Mimas And Prometheus

Mimas and Prometheus

Image Credit: NASA / JPL / Cassini-ISS / Justin Cowart


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6 years ago

“Being curious is better than being smart. Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action. Being smart will never deliver results on its own because it doesn’t get you to act. It is desire, not intelligence, that prompts behavior.”

— James Clear, Atomic Habits

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chaos3612 - Chaotic Dynamics
Chaotic Dynamics

Small and angry.PhD student. Mathematics. Slow person. Side blog, follow with @talrg.

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