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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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Monthly Archives: November 2009
Valour IT Auctions
Valour IT fundraising is coming into the home stretch here. The auctions have begun, and can be found here . Some one of a kind articles are on this site. All the proceeds to to Valour IT so, do some … Continue reading
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TR – Failure
The good folks over at The Art of Manliness have taken the “motivator” comcept in a most acceptable direction. There are a wide variety of them on their site with various historical characters, as well as some other great daily … Continue reading
Posted in Heroes, History
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Valour IT – Fundraising Continues
If you haven’t yet done so, please consider a small donation to the Valour IT Marine team. We’ve managed to assemble a team of over 65 bloggers but it’s tough for us to compete with the larger services. Until yesterday … Continue reading
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Have You Ever Dreamed…
Have you ever dreamed about what flying with the Blue Angels would be like… Make sure you notice the control surface deflections…. amazing stuff.
Posted in Aviation
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USS New York
The view from the conference room this morning was interesting. One brand new LPD moving upstream. Sorry about the quality. It is through a window, 14 floors up, with a cell phone. I’ll work on cleaning this up as time … Continue reading
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Valour IT – Fundraising in progress
The Valour IT fund raiser is still moving right along. Please feel free to drop a couple of dollars, euros, yen, etc. in the thermometer over there to the left. Most of may go, “Hrmmph, just another beg for dollars”. … Continue reading
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