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NASA performs census for blackholes

Posted Oct 08, 2006 at 06:58AM by Mabie A. Listed in: News, NASA, Celestial Bodies Tags: NASA, black hole, gamma, AGN
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Did you know that there are more than 200 supermassive black holes called Active Galactic Nuclei, or AGN in the local universe? Yup, that's right. And they provide a definitive census of black hole activity, allowing the team of NASA scientists to take into full account many new blackholes that were previously missed, and along the way, they discovered a whole lot of other surprises.

With this census, scientists are excited at the prospect of probing deeper into the universe, and hopefully with the new information that they have gathered, we could gain more understanding and knowledge of this vast blanket of mystery we are relegated in.

Using Swift's Burst Alert Telescope, which is sensitive to the highest-energy X-rays, a scan of the sky is made in between bursts of gamma-rays. Although many AGNs are hidden behind dust and gas which block lower-energy light, such as visible light, they still find no escape from Swift's penetrating gaze, thanks to its highest-energy X-rays. Says the census team leader Richar Mushotzky, "You can't understand the universe without understanding black holes." It is believed that blackhole activity plays a rather pivotal role in star formation. If this was the case, then we just might be looking at the answer to the question of how the universe was made really soon.

The answer to life, the universe and everything... could this be found in blackholes? Or was Douglas Adams right and the answer is actually 42?

[Via physorg] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

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