Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/pfrancis/pink/press_release.txt Дата изменения: Fri Apr 30 10:49:22 1999 Дата индексирования: Tue Oct 2 03:59:00 2012 Кодировка:

Embargoed until 11am, Thursday 6th May

SOME BLACK HOLES ARE PINK

A group of Australian astronomers have found that some black holes are
bright pink!

Black holes have captured the imagination of the public over the years with
some popular depictions in science fiction movies. They have such intense
gravity fields that they even suck in light. This is why they appear blackЉ
but Dr Paul Francis, a lecturer at the Australian National University,
together with Dr Rachel Webster and Dr Michael Drinkwater, from the
University of Melbourne's School of Physics have discovered that some black
holes are pink in colour.

The "Pink holes" were discovered using telescopes at Parkes and
Coonabarabran in the western plains of NSW between 1994 and 1998. The work
will be presented at the "Fresh Science" Conference in Melbourne.

"These pink things were quite easy to find" said Dr Francis. "The hard bit
was proving that they are black holes. These black holes are more than a
billion light-years away, and are more than one hundred thousand times
fainter than the human eye can see. It took the combined power of four of
Australia's best telescopes to identify what they were."

How could a black hole be pink? "We really don't have the foggiest idea"
said Dr Francis. "We're pretty certain that it isn't the black holes
themselves that are pink, the pink light is actually coming from gas just
outside the black hole. We think that these black holes live in the middle
of galaxies, and they are devouring anything that comes near them. Possibly
as the mangled remains of space matter, stars and gas clouds swirl down the
throat of the black holes, they emit an intense pink light."

It is well known that massive black holes devour stars and gas. Black holes
like this are called quasars, and were first discovered in the 1960s."Until
now", Dr Francis said, "only blue quasars had been seen, and it was
believed that the debris swirling around black holes should emit only blue
light, not pink."

So what is different about these pink quasars? "We're don't really know"
said Dr Francis. "But we are beginning to suspect that the debris swirling
around the black holes is acting as a vast natural radio transmitter,
broadcasting intense pink light to the universe."

For further information contact Niall Byrne, Media Liaison, at ScienceNOW!
In Melbourne on
0417 131 977, email niall@byc.com.au, or Dr Paul Francis, (02) 6249-2824
(w), (02) 6257-9263 (h)
Photos and background information will be available on the website from the
day of presentation on www.asnevents.net.au/sciencenow
No 35/99