The Cloudy Cores of Active Galaxies
Explanation:
What would it look like to travel to the center of an active galaxy?
Most galactic centers are thought to house
black holes millions of times more massive than our Sun.
The spaces surrounding these supermassive black holes may be far from dormant, however,
flickering in many colors and earning the entire object class the title of
Active Galactic Nuclei
(AGN).
Pictured above
is a video illustrating how an active galactic nucleus may appear up close.
AGN typically sport
massive
accretion disks feeding the central black hole, as well
as
powerful jets
shooting electrically
charged matter
far into the surrounding universe.
Clouds of gas and
dust seen
orbiting the central black holes have
recently been found to be so dense that
they intermittently eclipse even penetrating
x-rays
from reaching us.
These
X-ray dimming events, as short as hours but as
long as years, were detected in an analysis encompassing over a decade of data taken
by the NASA's orbiting
Rossi
X-ray Timing Explorer
(RXTE).
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
