Very Cool! Black hole blows huge gas bubble!!!

[Joanne98]

Black holes can release jets of fast-moving particles as they gorge on matter A small black hole has been observed blowing a vast bubble of hot gas 1,000 light-years across.

The gas is expanding because it is being heated by powerful particle "jets" being released by the black hole.

The observations were made by the Very Large Telescope in Chile and Nasa's Chandra space observatory.

Astronomers have unveiled the findings in the latest edition of Nature journal.

"We have been astonished by how much energy is injected into the gas by the black hole," says lead author Manfred Pakull, from the University of Strasbourg, France.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10555633.stm

[xchrom]

1. how rude. nt

[davidinalameda]

3. I've had gas bubbles that big

not fun

[eowyn_of_rohan]

2. Oh Gawd- I thought this was about the BP Balrog in the Gulf

A relief to know this is far enough away to only be seen with a Very Large Telescope

[tabatha]

4. I have always wondered

how black holes could keep all that matter confined in such a small space. There is a point at which forces that repel have to come into play. It was why about 30 years ago I could not believe that black holes could exist. Then I read an article in SciAm (last year?) that stated that streams of matter are sometimes emitted by black holes.

[Confusious]

14. There is so much matter

that no force can keep gravity from collapsing it into a tiny ball.

[soleft]

5. That's very pretty but what does it mean?

[tridim]

13. That's not a real picture BTW, it's an illustration.

The only star our telescopes can resolve is our own.

[Lucky Luciano]

6. I thought you were referring to gasbag Rush Limbaugh opening his mouth!

Very cool picture though!

[NNN0LHI]

7. I thought the entire concept of a "black hole" was that nothing gets out? Not even light

So, how does a gas bubble get out? And if it can is this truly a "black hole?"

Something is funny here.

Is this from the onion?

Don

[Vinnie From Indy]

9. You are correct

Black holes only emit Hawking radiation. They do NOT spew gas. The OP headline and this story are not correct.
Once ANYTHING passes the event horizon, it will never reemerge into this universe.

[HughMoran]

12. The gas "is being heated by powerful particle "jets" being released by the black hole."

So the jet is expanding the gas or "blowing" it up in a manner of speaking.

It's not incorrect, but it's certainly unclear and possibly deceptive to novices.

[tridim]

11. Only if it reaches the event horizon

Even then, the latest theory is that information remains visible as a scrambled hologram on the event horizon as it seeks the singularity. Quantum theory predicts it.

Yes, it means that matter and energy within a black hole exists at two locations at the same time, but technically the "space" between a singularity and the event horizon isn't really space, it's zero.

[On the Road]

15. I Am Assuming the Gas is Ejected from the Accretion Disk

but has not passed the event horizon. The article is either mistaken, inexact, or is using a looser definition of what constitutes a black hole.

[Urban Prairie]

8. So apparently black holes can also burp and fart, while they are eating huh? n/t

[liberalmuse]

10. Black Holes fart?

That is so cool!