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- Portrait of a Doomed Asteroid
A new study provides a possible explanation of mysterious X-ray flares detected by the Chandra K-ray Observatory for several years in the region of Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*. The study suggests a cloud around Sgr A*, a supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, which contains hundreds of trillions of asteroids and comets that have been stripped from their parent stars. The flares occur when asteroids of six miles or larger in radius are consumed by the black hole. An asteroid that undergoes a close encounter with another object, such as a star or planet, can be thrown into an orbit headed towards Sgr A*. If the asteroid passes within about 100 million miles of the black hole, roughly the distance between the Earth and the sun, it is torn into pieces by the tidal forces from the black hole. These fragments would then be vaporized by friction as they pass through the hot, thin gas flowing onto Sgr A*, similar to a meteor heating up and glowing as it falls through Earth's atmosphere. A flare is produced and eventually the remains of the asteroid are swallowed by the black hole. Image Credit: Illustrations: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
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Daily Archives: January 18, 2008
Common / Good Sense
Today seems to be a day of pointing out the thoughts of others, that I happen to agree with. For your reading enjoyment, slip on over to Mrs. du Toit ande read her essay. For my shallow comment of the … Continue reading
Posted in Society
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Then and Now
Over at Raven’s place she has published a post comparing social approaches to different scenarios that might occur 1967 vs 2007. I’ve got to tell you it is one of those that makes me wonder where the road branched and … Continue reading
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Influencing Results
I know I am a bit late to the party on this one. It always amazes me the way that we encourage / allow anyone in the world to influence polls and results. Without having done any research, just observationally, … Continue reading
Posted in Experiments, Society
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