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novapsycheCNN Black Hole Story
"The ejection of jets from stellar supermassive black holes is a common occurrence in the universe, so it is extremely important to understand the process," he [John Tomsick of the University of California, San Diego] said.
The jets seemed to start out faster than the speed of light, then slow down as they collided with interstellar gas and dust, much as air resistance decreases the speed of objects moving through the atmosphere.
"Initially the jets have been launched at a velocity close to the speed of light. Due to an optical illusion, the jet pointed toward us appeared to move faster than the speed of light," University of Paris astronomer Stephane Corbel said.
[...] While complete, the jet show {see picture in original story} has confounded astronomers. In the images, the jet on the right is the one heading away from our direction. Due to the perspective, it should be dimmer than the one on the left. Yet the opposite is true.
"This poses a puzzle. The simple model for jets doesn't explain what we are seeing. Either the black hole may somehow be feeding more energy into the western [right] jet or that jet has run into a dense cloud," said team scientist Phil Kaaret of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"The ejection of jets from stellar supermassive black holes is a common occurrence in the universe, so it is extremely important to understand the process," he [John Tomsick of the University of California, San Diego] said.
The jets seemed to start out faster than the speed of light, then slow down as they collided with interstellar gas and dust, much as air resistance decreases the speed of objects moving through the atmosphere.
"Initially the jets have been launched at a velocity close to the speed of light. Due to an optical illusion, the jet pointed toward us appeared to move faster than the speed of light," University of Paris astronomer Stephane Corbel said.
[...] While complete, the jet show {see picture in original story} has confounded astronomers. In the images, the jet on the right is the one heading away from our direction. Due to the perspective, it should be dimmer than the one on the left. Yet the opposite is true.
"This poses a puzzle. The simple model for jets doesn't explain what we are seeing. Either the black hole may somehow be feeding more energy into the western [right] jet or that jet has run into a dense cloud," said team scientist Phil Kaaret of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.