This composite image shows the effects of two galaxies caught in the act of merging. A Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows a pair of quasars in blue, located about 4.6 billion light years away, but separated on the sky by only about 70 thousand light years. These bright sources, collectively called SDSS J1254+0846, are powered by material falling onto supermassive black holes. An optical image from the Baade-Magellan telescope in Chile, in yellow, shows tidal tails - gravitational-stripped streamers of stars and gas -- fanning out from the two colliding galaxies.
This represents the first time a luminous pair of quasars has been clearly seen in an ongoing galaxy merger. "Quasars are the most luminous compact objects in the Universe, and though about a million of them are now known, it's incredibly hard work to find two quasars side by side," said Paul Green, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA, who led the study.
This pair of quasars was first detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a large-scale astronomical survey of galaxies and quasars. They were observed with the Magellan telescope to determine whether the quasars were close enough to show clear signs of interactions between their host galaxies. "The tidal tails fanning out from the galaxies that we see in the optical image are a sure sign, the litmus test of an ongoing galaxy merger," said Green.
This result represents strong evidence for the prediction that a pair of quasars would be triggered during a merger. The galaxy disks both appear to be nearly face-on to Earth, which may explain why the X-rays from Chandra show no signs of absorption by intervening gas or dust.
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Dear Aubrey Hogan,
Thanks for your comment. I see some discussion of "plasmoids" in peer-reviewed papers, mostly to do with solar system phenomena, though without further research I don't know if any of these correspond to "Bostick's" plasmoids and the related theories of an "electric Universe". However, any arguments that these plasmoids discount the need for black holes (or important elements of modern cosmology, including the existence of dark matter and dark energy) are well outside mainstream thinking. There are many independent lines of evidence for the existence of black holes, dark matter and dark energy. That doesn't prove that these "electric Universe" theories are wrong, it just means they're very unlikely to be right.
P. Edmonds for CXC
Posted by P. Edmonds on Tuesday, 08.31.10 @ 09:21am
The observed phenomena looks exactly like Bostick's plasmoids and is an excellent support for electric universe theory. No mystical, unobservable, unmeasurable, unfalsifiable, dark occult properties are required to explain any of it. The images are really awesome. Thank you. The explanations offered are weak. It is unfortunate that more credence is not given to other theories. When only one theory is allowed to be considered, it isn't science anymore. It is religion.
Posted by Aubrey Hogan on Thursday, 08.19.10 @ 14:13pm
What is a light year?
Posted by dg on Friday, 04.2.10 @ 18:32pm
Dear Garry,
Thanks for your question. There are many different pieces of evidence for black holes, including measurements of the mass of compact objects in binary systems:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/m33x7/
and studying the orbits of stars near the center of our galaxy, which point to an object weighing about 4 million times the mass of the Sun. The prodigious amounts of light produced by quasars are also best explained by black holes. These don't constitute proof that black holes exist, but taken together they represent powerful evidence.
P. Edmonds for CXC
Posted by P. Edmonds on Wednesday, 03.3.10 @ 10:46am
Dear Bill,
Thanks for your comment: the evidence that Markarian 205 is directly connected to a neighboring galaxy at a very different redshift is too weak to be taken seriously. It is perfectly reasonable for two objects at different distances - but closely separated on the sky - to show regions of overlapping light. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that redshifts accurately give distances in the cosmos.
P. Edmonds for CXC
Posted by P. Edmonds on Wednesday, 03.3.10 @ 10:44am
Dear Jake,
Thanks for your comment which we'll take into account.
P. Edmonds for CXC
Posted by P. Edmonds on Wednesday, 03.3.10 @ 10:42am
I wish there were audio to go along with your articles similar to what Dr. Tony Phillips does on Science Nasa Gov.
Posted by Jake on Tuesday, 02.16.10 @ 00:20am
Many years ago Emil Wolf showed that radio signatures that associate with quasars are produced when light passes through turbulent radio atmospheres as must happen when galaxies colide. We have known for more than a decade that Markarian 205 has a filament directly connecting the galaxy less than 200,000 light years away to a quasar that was once believed to be millions of light years beyond Markarian 205. How can you tell the difference?
Posted by Bill Tieckelmann on Monday, 02.15.10 @ 17:40pm
Why do Astronomers state as fact that black holes exist? It is still only a theory but it seems the assumption is gospel X-Rays are a electromagnetic phenomenon i e an electric current a magnetic field.
Posted by Garry Maxfield on Thursday, 02.11.10 @ 21:57pm
Very good, and it is a relevant area as our galaxy heads toward Andromeda, so we can look to see interactive relations in collision and black hole action.
Posted by Neal on Thursday, 02.11.10 @ 07:04am
Dear Sourav Maiti,
There is a quasar in each of the two galaxies that are undergoing this
merger.
P. Edmonds for CXC
Posted by P. Edmonds on Tuesday, 02.9.10 @ 14:11pm
Dear J. Madson,
Thanks for your question. There is the "Local Hot Bubble", and I see
there's a post about this on wikipedia. You can use this as a starting
point to learn more. There are bound to be many other bubbles, but they
will be hard to detect around other stars.
P. Edmonds for CXC
Posted by P. Edmonds on Tuesday, 02.9.10 @ 14:09pm
Dear Ariel
Thanks very much for the heads-up!
P. Edmonds for CXC
Posted by P. Edmonds on Tuesday, 02.9.10 @ 14:07pm
So good.
Posted by DEVI on Tuesday, 02.9.10 @ 05:00am
Thanks for posting this. It discussed very well, also it is very much informative. However, I want to know whether these two quasars are living in only one galaxy or both the two galaxies.
Posted by Sourav Maiti on Sunday, 02.7.10 @ 12:10pm
Meraviglioso (marvellous). As Oscar Wilde said. "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Thank you for the beautiful works.
Posted by Elisabetta di Cagno on Saturday, 02.6.10 @ 15:30pm
Maybe the physics of the forming object also produces secondaries, which produces its own secondaries etc as size and energy permits.
Posted by J. Madson on Saturday, 02.6.10 @ 07:00am
I have a question. Are there bubbles aside of other stars? I understand that there is one near the solar system. Is it common? I don’t mean the heliospheric-gas interaction oblateness, just a bubble. At what size relative to the solar system? What motions? What shape? Paticles may be inside it emitting a frequency that can be read. Is there inter-action with the solar system?
Posted by J. Madson on Saturday, 02.6.10 @ 06:53am
How inspiring and interesting to see if any similar objects can be found nearer to milky way and what if any affect it may have on us.
Posted by Sid Sefton on Friday, 02.5.10 @ 15:23pm
Think of it, the light were seeing left. About the same time as the birth of our planet.
Sometimes, looking at these images, I feel I'm looking into eternity.
Sam, Galt, CA
Posted by Sam on Friday, 02.5.10 @ 13:54pm
Amazing, but did you check the SDSS J1254+0846 in Wikisky? The quasars are already there. Also, I can see a strong UV emission from Wikisky GALEX survey.
Regards
Posted by Ariel on Friday, 02.5.10 @ 10:31am
Dear Friends at Chandra,
Thanks a lot for regular & today's information with related links, help us to boost our knowledge.
Regards
ddpurohit
India
Posted by ddpurohit vadodara on Friday, 02.5.10 @ 07:57am
Amazing.
Posted by Victor on Friday, 02.5.10 @ 07:50am
Very good. Thank you.
Posted by Roy Wolford on Friday, 02.5.10 @ 00:33am
FANTASTIC.
Posted by prof nataraj k s on Thursday, 02.4.10 @ 23:43pm
I want to see an actual dead on center collision between two quasars in order to see what the result is.
Posted by dan on Thursday, 02.4.10 @ 20:06pm
There is always something new to learn and discover. Our universe is always full of surprises just waiting for us to discover them.
This is one beautiful sight to behold
Marvin L S
Posted by Marvin L. S. on Thursday, 02.4.10 @ 13:46pm
Awesome.
Posted by Tom Hamblin on Thursday, 02.4.10 @ 13:34pm
Ladies and Gentlemen,
For a number of years we have been hiking and playing in the immediate vicinity of the Effelsberg Germany radio-telescope. Your magic website with its intoxicating contents allow us now to visualize some of the space objects to which radio signals from Effelsberg are being sent to. We wish you good luck and continued success in capturing these magic visions.
Regards andrew herold
Hannah Jan-Philipp
Posted by andrew herold on Thursday, 02.4.10 @ 12:23pm
This has to be spectacular.
With the Telescopes and backup now available, one wonders what is the next discovery.
Posted by Mark Ballington on Thursday, 02.4.10 @ 05:44am
So impressive and a wonderful discovery.
Posted by Ümit Fuat Özyar on Thursday, 02.4.10 @ 04:44am