ESO: Black hole discovered in star cluster outside the Milky Way

November 11, 2021 TopSpacer

A new report from ESO (European Southern Observatory):

Black hole found hiding in star cluster outside our galaxy

This artist’s impression shows a compact black hole 11 times as massive as the Sun and the five-solar-mass star orbiting it. The two objects are located in NGC 1850, a cluster of thousands of stars roughly 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a Milky Way neighbour. The distortion of the star’s shape is due to the strong gravitational force exerted by the black hole. Not only does the black hole’s gravitational force distort the shape of the star, but it also influences its orbit. By looking at these subtle orbital effects, a team of astronomers were able to infer the presence of the black hole, making it the first small black hole outside of our galaxy to be found this way. For this discovery, the team used the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have discovered a small black hole outside the Milky Way by looking at how it influences the motion of a star in its close vicinity. This is the first time this detection method has been used to reveal the presence of a black hole outside of our galaxy. The method could be key to unveiling hidden black holes in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and to help shed light on how these mysterious objects form and evolve.

The newly found black hole was spotted lurking in NGC 1850, a cluster of thousands of stars roughly 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbour galaxy of the Milky Way.

“Similar to Sherlock Holmes tracking down a criminal gang from their missteps, we are looking at every single star in this cluster with a magnifying glass in one hand trying to find some evidence for the presence of black holes but without seeing them directly,”

says Sara Saracino from the Astrophysics Research Institute of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, who led the research now accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“The result shown here represents just one of the wanted criminals, but when you have found one, you are well on your way to discovering many others, in different clusters.”

This first “criminal” tracked down by the team turned out to be roughly 11 times as massive as our Sun. The smoking gun that put the astronomers on the trail of this black hole was its gravitational influence on the five-solar-mass star orbiting it.

This image shows NGC1850, a cluster of thousands of stars roughly 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a Milky Way neighbour. The reddish filaments surrounding the cluster, made of vast clouds of hydrogen, are believed to be the remnants of supernova explosions. The image is an overlay of observations conducted in visible light with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The VLT captured the wide field of the image and the filaments, while the central cluster was imaged by the HST. Among many stars, this cluster is home to a black hole 11 times as massive as the Sun and to a five-solar-mass star orbiting it. By looking at the star’s orbit, a team of astronomers were able to infer the presence of the black hole, making it the first small black hole outside of our galaxy to be found this way. For this discovery, the team used the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at the VLT.

Astronomers have previously spotted such small, “stellar-mass” black holes in other galaxies by picking up the X-ray glow emitted as they swallow matter, or from the gravitational waves generated as black holes collide with one another or with neutron stars.

However, most stellar-mass black holes don’t give away their presence through X-rays or gravitational waves.

“The vast majority can only be unveiled dynamically,”

says Stefan Dreizler, a team member based at the University of Göttingen in Germany.

“When they form a system with a star, they will affect its motion in a subtle but detectable way, so we can find them with sophisticated instruments.”

This dynamical method used by Saracino and her team could allow astronomers to find many more black holes and help unlock their mysteries.

“Every single detection we make will be important for our future understanding of stellar clusters and the black holes in them,”

says study co-author Mark Gieles from the University of Barcelona, Spain.

The detection in NGC 1850 marks the first time a black hole has been found in a young cluster of stars (the cluster is only around 100 million years old, a blink of an eye on astronomical scales). Using their dynamical method in similar star clusters could unveil even more young black holes and shed new light on how they evolve. By comparing them with larger, more mature black holes in older clusters, astronomers would be able to understand how these objects grow by feeding on stars or merging with other black holes. Furthermore, charting the demographics of black holes in star clusters improves our understanding of the origin of gravitational wave sources.

To carry out their search, the team used data collected over two years with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) mounted at ESO’s VLT, located in the Chilean Atacama Desert.

“MUSE allowed us to observe very crowded areas, like the innermost regions of stellar clusters, analysing the light of every single star in the vicinity. The net result is information about thousands of stars in one shot, at least 10 times more than with any other instrument,”

says co-author Sebastian Kamann, a long-time MUSE expert based at Liverpool’s Astrophysics Research Institute. This allowed the team to spot the odd star out whose peculiar motion signalled the presence of the black hole. Data from the University of Warsaw’s Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment and from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope enabled them to measure the mass of the black hole and confirm their findings.

ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope in Chile, set to start operating later this decade, will allow astronomers to find even more hidden black holes.

“The ELT will definitely revolutionise this field,” says Saracino. “It will allow us to observe stars considerably fainter in the same field of view, as well as to look for black holes in globular clusters located at much greater distances.”

ESO’s VISTA telescope reveals a remarkable image of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our nearest galactic neighbours. VISTA has been surveying this galaxy and its sibling the Small Magellanic Cloud, as well as their surroundings, in unprecedented detail. This survey allows astronomers to observe a large number of stars, opening up new opportunities to study stellar evolution, galactic dynamics, and variable stars.

Links

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The Space Show this week – Nov.8.2021

November 8, 2021 TopSpacer

The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:

1. Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT): We welcome back Dr. Alice Gorman on news with space archaeology.

2. Wednesday, Nov.10, 2021: Hotel Mars – Dr. Peter Schultz will talk with John Batchelor and Dr. David Livingston about the comet that hit Earth over the Atacama Desert 10,000 years ago.

3. Friday, Nov.12, 2021; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am-1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): We welcome Michael Castle Miller to discuss space settlement and his Lunar Development Cooperative plus related topics.

4. Sunday, Nov.14, 2021; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): We welcome back Christopher Stone with national security space news plus Chris takes a look at China’s hypersonic nuclear weapon.

Some recent shows:

** Sunday, Nov.7.2021 – Open lines program in which Dr. David Livingston led a discussion with callers on a range of issues including a particular emphasis on space solar power and fusion energy.

** Friday, Nov.5.2021 – Dr. Casey Handmer talked about the issues presented in his blog posting, Starship is Still Not Understood – Casey Handmer’s blog.

** Tuesday, Nov.2.2021 – Dr. Francis Cucinotta discussed “human spaceflight, settlement and radiation“.

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation .

The Space Show - David Livingston — The Space Show – Dr. David Livingston

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Videos: “Space to Ground” + Other ISS reports – Nov.6.2021

November 6, 2021 TopSpacer

Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:

** NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 Astronauts Advance Research in Space – NASA

After more than six months aboard the International Space Station, the astronauts of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission are returning home. The four crew members — NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet — will travel back to Earth inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. These crew members contributed to hundreds of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations while aboard the orbiting laboratory. This valuable scientific research helps to prepare humans for future space exploration missions while generating numerous innovations and benefits for humanity on Earth. Here is a look at some of the scientific milestones accomplished during the Crew-2 mission. [Crew-2’s Scientific Journey on the ISS | NASA]

** Capture confirmed! Russian Progress 79 docks with space station – VideoFromSpace

An uncrewed Russian Soyuz Progress 79 cargo ship docked with the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module on Oct. 29, 2021. Watch it launch: https://www.space.com/russia-progress…

** Space Station tour with your guide Thomas Pesquet | 4K [in French with English subtitles available] – European Space Agency, ESA on Youtube

Join ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet on a tour of the International Space Station. On his second space mission Alpha, Thomas flew to space from Florida, USA, as part of Crew-2 in the @SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour together with @NASA astronauts Megan McArthur, Shane Kimbrough and @JAXA | 宇宙航空研究開発機構 astronaut Aki Hoshide In this guided tour, a first shot in 4K, Thomas takes you through the modules of the International Space Station including the Dragon. Recorded in October 2021 the Space Station had just seen the departure of Soyuz MS-18 and the relocation of a Progress supply spacecraft. On board where also NASA astronaut Mark VandeHei and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov. Over 200 investigations are planned during Thomas’ time in space, with 40 European ones and 12 new experiments led by the French space agency @CNES. Follow Thomas: http://bit.ly/ThomasPesquetBlog

** NLRA 2022-3: In Space Production Applications Tissue Engineering and Biomanufacturing – ISS National Lab

On November 1, 2021, the ISS National Lab held a webinar to provide further background on NLRA [National Lab Research Announcements] 2022-3 and to answer any questions.

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New podcast series explores the “Age of Discovery 2.0”

November 2, 2021 TopSpacer

History on the Net debuts today a 6-episode podcast series titled Age of Discovery 2.0. It compares the transformative effects that the opening of the New World had on Western Civilization to the possible effects that opening space will have on Earth’s civilization.

How will the Age of Discovery 2.0 change our civilization the way the first one did five centuries ago?

To find the answer, History Unplugged is interviewing historians, scientists, and futurists who have spent decades researching this question by looking at the past to understand the future.

Here is the debut episode: Episode 1: Welcome to the Age of Discovery 2.0:

In this first episode of the series, historian and space enthusiast Scott Rank explains how the first Age of Discovery completely altered the global balance of power, elevating Europe from a poor backwater into the globe’s dominant military intellectual, and economic region. Today, with rocket launch costs dropping by orders of magnitude, we are on the verge of a second Age of Exploration equally — if not more — consequential than the one that the first.

The Age of Discovery changed Western culture in numerous ways. It increased human freedom because it allowed Europeans to escape the Old World’s rigid social hierarchy, increased wealth by increasing trade and utilizing new resources, and increased human ingenuity by forcing it to innovate and create new technologies in a challenging frontier environment. In upcoming episodes, he will interview historians and science writers (including yours truly) who will explain how we can expect more of this in the Second Age of Discovery.

The guests in episodes 2-4 include:

Robert Zubrin: Robert Zubrin is an American aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for the human exploration of Mars. Disappointed with the lack of interest from government in Mars exploration and after the success of his book The Case for Mars (1996), as well as leadership experience at the National Space Society, Zubrin established the Mars Society in 1998, an international organization advocating a human mission to Mars as a goal, by private funding if possible.

Glenn Reynolds: Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, and is known for his American politics blog, Instapundit. He has written numerous books and articles on space law and policy and has served as Executive Vice President of the National Space Society, and on a White House advisory committee on space policy.

Robert Zimmerman: Robert has written multiple histories about the first forty years of space exploration as well as more than a hundred magazine and newspaper articles about the adventure of science and astronomy. He says that future generations will look back at Earth and see it only as the Old World.

The fifth episode will feature Rand Simberg, aerospace engineer and author of Safe Is Not An Option: Overcoming The Futile Obsession With Getting Everyone Back Alive That Is Killing Our Expansion Into Space [Amazon commission link].

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Night sky highlights for November 2021

November 2, 2021 TopSpacer

** What’s Up: November 2021 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL

What are some skywatching highlights in November 2021?

Enjoy the Moon and planets after sunset all month, plus a lunar eclipse! A partial lunar eclipse will be visible to much of the world on Nov. 18 and 19. Also, the familiar stars of Northern Hemisphere winter (or Southern summer) are returning to late night skies. In particular, note that several destinations of NASA’s Lucy mission are located near the Pleiades.

Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/whats-up….

** Tonight’s Sky: November – Space Telescope Science Institute – Tonight’s Sky

In November, hunt for the fainter constellations of fall, including Pisces, Aries, and Triangulum. They will guide you to find several galaxies and a pair of white stars. Stay tuned for space-based views of spiral galaxy M74 and the Triangulum Galaxy, which are shown in visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light.