Incredible Light Show: Gas Jet Flaring From M87's Black Hole
Written by Nancy Atkinson
Hubble image of a gas jet blasing from the core of M87. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Madrid (McMaster University)
Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. The Hubble Space Telescope has been keeping an eye on the very active galaxy M87 for years, and has now captured a flare-up in a jet of matter blasting from the galaxy's monster black hole. This 5,000-light-year-long, narrow beam of radiation and plasma is as bright as a Star Wars light saber and as destructive as the Death Star. This extragalactic jet is being fueled and ejected from the vicinity of a monster black hole that is 3 billion times the mass of our Sun. "I did not expect the jet in M87 or any other jet powered by accretion onto a black hole to increase in brightness in the way that this jet does," says astronomer Juan Madrid of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. "It grew 90 times brighter than normal. But the question is, does this happen to every single jet or active nucleus, or are we seeing some odd behavior from M87?"
The outburst is coming from a blob of matter, called HST-1, embedded in the jet, a powerful narrow beam of hot gas produced by the supermassive black hole residing in the core of this giant elliptical galaxy. HST-1 is so bright that it is outshining even M87's brilliant core, whose monster black hole is one of the most massive yet discovered.
The glowing gas clump has taken astronomers on a rollercoaster ride of suspense. Astronomers watched HST-1 brighten steadily for several years, then fade, and then brighten again. They say it's hard to predict what will happen next.
Hubble has been following the surprising activity for seven years, providing the most detailed ultraviolet-light view of the event. Other telescopes have been monitoring HST-1 in other wavelengths, including radio and X-rays. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was the first to report the brightening in 2000. HST-1 was first discovered and named by Hubble astronomers in 1999. The gas knot is 214 light-years from the galaxy's core.
The flare-up may provide insights into the variability of black hole jets in distant galaxies, which are difficult to study because they are too far away. M87 is located 54 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster, a region of the nearby universe with the highest density of galaxies.
Hubble gives astronomers a unique near-ultraviolet view of the flare that cannot be accomplished with ground-based telescopes. "Hubble's sharp vision allows it to resolve HST-1 and separate it from the black hole," Madrid explains.
Despite the many observations by Hubble and other telescopes, astronomers are not sure what is causing the brightening. One of the simplest explanations is that the jet is hitting a dust lane or gas cloud and then glows due to the collision. Another possibility is that the jet's magnetic field lines are squeezed together, unleashing a large amount of energy. This phenomenon is similar to how solar flares develop on the Sun and is even a mechanism for creating Earth's auroras.
The disk around a rapidly spinning black hole has magnetic field lines that entrap ionized gas falling toward the black hole. These particles, along with radiation, flow rapidly away from the black hole along the magnetic field lines. The rotational energy of the spinning accretion disk adds momentum to the outflowing jet.
Gas jet from M87. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Madrid (McMaster University)
Madrid assembled seven years' worth of Hubble archival images of the jet to capture changes in the HST-1's behavior over time. Some of the images came from observing programs that studied the galaxy, but not the jet.
He found data from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) that showed a noticeable brightening between 1999 and 2001. In images from 2002 to 2005, HST-1 continued to rise steadily in brightness. In 2003 the jet knot was more brilliant than M87's luminous core. In May 2005 HST-1 became 90 times brighter than it was in 1999. After May 2005 the flare began to fade, but it intensified again in November 2006. This second outburst was fainter than the first one.
"By watching the outburst over several years, I was able to follow the brightness and see the evolution of the flare over time," Madrid says. "We are lucky to have telescopes like Hubble and Chandra, because without them we would see the increase in brightness in the core of M87, but we would not know where it was coming from."
Madrid hopes that future observations of HST-1 will reveal the cause of the mysterious activity. "We hope the observations will yield some theories that will give us some good explanations as to the mechanism that is causing the flaring," Madrid says. "Astronomers would like to know if this is an intrinsic instability of the jet when it plows its way out of the galaxy, or if it is something else."
The study's results are published in the April 2009 issue of the Astronomical Journal.
Source: HubbleSite
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April 14th, 2009 at 7:42 am
This story is a good reckoning of how multidisciplinary and multiwavelength observations over a sufficient period of time can help astrophysicists decipher the actual physics taking place here. But I am also in agreement with researcher Juan Madrid in that "the question is, does this happen to every single jet or active nucleus, or are we seeing some odd behavior from M87?” Also, some quasars, microquasars, active galactic nuclei, some supernovae and newly born stars all seem to exhibit some form of jet phenomenon, so research on the astrophysical nature of jets may answer questions among many diverse systems in our universe. Do all these jet phenomena share a common mechanism or are there substantial differences between them?
April 14th, 2009 at 8:29 am
This article has been added to the Astronomy Link List.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Reality might be stranger than fiction but at least reality has a place in science.
Black holes are science fiction and have no place in science reality.
And gas can only defy the gravitational pull of a black hole if gravitation is a myth.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:37 am
oills….read up on your physics and review or work out the math involved in black hole physics. black holes are real, it is proven mathematically through empirical/observational evidence. It has been tested multiple times by many multiple scientists using multiple telescopes. it is iron clad. Why do you read the papers and try to prove their data wrong….you can't!!!!
April 14th, 2009 at 9:39 am
"And gas can only defy the gravitational pull of a black hole if gravitation is a myth."
Unless the gas is very light and starts to float. ROFL!
April 14th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Don't worry, oz , Oils had a bad dream, he dreamt about gravity and black holes. LOL
Then he will go back to sleep dreaming of electricity.
To be honest these EU proponents are actually funny people. The article mentions ionized gas, and magnetic fields and who knows a z-pinch, so you would expect some EUREKA moment and pointing fingers like: See, see, electricity! But nope!
Now what is reality to EU proponents is seeing Jezus on a toast or so as proof that EU exists. LOL
April 14th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Oils-if you said no black hole and no gravity real in picture-what is picture about??!!
April 14th, 2009 at 10:29 am
The jet knot appears to be about 200 light years from the central black hole.
And the brightening happened over a period of just 7 years. It must be a very tight area of gas or magnetic field lines to be just 7 light years across.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:46 am
It would be interesting to have a red shift measurement of the matter leaving M87. If Halton Arp is correct, the redshift will be very high relative to M87. If the redshift is much higher than M87 then more than likely what we are seeing is a quasar being ejected from the galaxy core.
Hopefully the redshift will be measured.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:39 am
@ Brett:
I have no source at hand, but I bet that this has been done, already. I also bet that it is blue shifted with respect to the galaxy, because it moves towards us – good old Doppler.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Please spare the ad hominems against Oils.
The conventional view of the energy going into the jets is due to the putative central gravitational or magnetic source. One must ask then where the energy comes from so far from the source. The far magnetic field from a source, no matter how complex, looks like a dipole as the source becomes point-like with distance from the observer. So the magnetic field that far from the source (hundreds or thousands of light years vs a source purported to have an event horizon an AU or so in diameter) would be smoothly falling off and any reconnection or other energetic magnetic events would not take place (unless one purports another invisible source right where the action is taking place).
The astronomer admitted that he has no prediction on this. That happens often enough that alternate theories need consideration, especially those with a unifying capability.
I do heap praise on the author for using the word "plasma".
April 14th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Olaf said
"To be honest these EU proponents are actually funny people. The article mentions ionized gas, and magnetic fields and who knows a z-pinch, so you would expect some EUREKA moment and pointing fingers like: See, see, electricity! But nope!"
The whole "myth of gravity" thing is Oils personal opinion. It is not the opinion of EU scientists, EU proponents in general, and especially not me specifically. It's guilt by association and it's erroneous.
M87 is a great example of what EU theory says we should expect from a cosmic scale dense plasma focus or z-pinch. There is a 'gas disk' forming around the core. M87 appears to be a relatively new DPF in the early stages of spiral formation. Multi-wavelength images and data reveal organized structure, radio lobes, filamentation and rotation of the central disk.
I agree with Brett, that HST-1 is likely a recently ejected quasar along a field-aligned, axial discharge.
It's the, "first extragalactic TeV ?-ray source not belonging to the class of blazars."
M87 has a strong non-thermal, synchrotron radiation signature which matches z-pinch data from plasma research.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I also appaud for the use of the word "plasma" and the other references to electromagnetism. This is a step in the right direction.
It seems the scientists that are closest to the observation & measurement are most likely to describe these objects and processes with the paradigm that most closely matches the observations & measurements, themselves: Electromagnetism.
oz states: "Black holes are real, it is proven mathematically through empirical/observational evidence. It has been tested multiple times by many multiple scientists using multiple telescopes. it is iron clad. "
Completely false.
There are actually precious few indirect observations & measurements that suggest the validity of the so-called "black hole"
hypothesis.
And there are no direct observations & measurements of "blackholes", period.
@ Brett:
Your test is an excellent idea. As you suggest, should the jet's 'redshift' be higher than the galaxy it was emitted from that would be a confirmatory observation & measurement for Halton Arp's hypothesis.
@ drflimmer, you don't know, all you are doing is offering a wild guess — par for the course for budding "modern" astronomers.
Hopefully, an informed reader could actually supply authority on that question, one way or the other, but unlike drflimmer, I'm not holding my beath it actually exists.
There is no quantified, rigorous (read mathematical equations) explanation for jets coming off the so-called "accretion disk". In fact, an "accretion disk" has never been observed & measured, it was an ad hoc explanation (early "black hole" theory had no jets or "accretion disks" these were added after the jets were observed).
In fact, it has never been demonstrated that thermal friction (the supposed cause of the jets) can cause synchrotron radiation (electrons spiralling in a magnetic field at near relativitstic speed, close to the speed of light), synchrotron radiation is emitted in copious amounts from the jet.
@ Bill Davis:
You are right to question how a supposed diffused generation of thermal energy would generate a collimated jet 5,000 light years long. Certainly, "modern" astronomy has not explained it, and to give the scientist mentioned in the article credit, he acknowledged as much, himself.
Here is a Plasma Cosmology schematic for the electromagnetic dynamics of a galactic jet like M87's in this article.
The processes exhibited by M87 can be explained in terms of electromagnetism.
Gravity undeniably is playing some role, but what that role is exactly, nobody knows.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Wasn't the Milky Way's central black hole recently proven beyond all doubt? I seem to remember time elapse video of stars orbiting what appears to be nothing in the galactic core.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
We cannot determine the "redshift" of the jet. It has no emission or absorption lines that are required for that task.
But what we can do, is a measurment of the Doppler boosting factor. This factor gives us a clue how strong the synchrotron emission is beamed into the direction of motion, a relativistic effect.
adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009MNRAS.395..301W
This (quite new) paper favors a doppler factor of about 2-5. That is not that high, but could be due to the viewing angle (but I do not know that for sure). This means that the components of the jet are moving outward of the galaxy. Indeed, this rules out nothing.
On the other hand: Quasars must have some sort of emission lines, otherwise the redshift could not be measured (or I forget something, which is not entirely impossible). Since those blobs don't seem to have any "lines", it is impossible to check Arp's theory.
@ Anaconda:
Yes, I made that terrible mistake to deny the existence of currents in space some time ago.
But your ignorance is not better. Why do you always say that "mainstream" science does only have a "gravitational only" model. Science does not exclude em-forces from its models, do you really think scientists are so stupid? Have you ever heard of the "standard model" of quasars? I think, there is no scientist anywhere who claims that jets are not made of magnetic fields. Please, accept that!
And btw: My "wild guess" is less speculative than Arp's idea which is proven wrong in these days.
To quote myself from an earlier thread:
April 14th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Yes, and early electromagnetic "theory" had no plasma in mind. They were added after it was observed….
April 14th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
A fascinating related paper appears on todays' arXiv.org site here: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0904/0904.1857v1.pdf . This paper just presents another piece of the puzzle of 'what is the jet of M 87 representing?' & 'what powers this celestial powerhouse?'. Certainly deep, deep questions regarding a complicated observed phenomenon.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Also note – where is the flurry of theoretical and observational peer-reviewed papers from the EU/PU camp directly addressing these irrefutable observations? The silence is deafening.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
@ Jon Hanford:
That is the same paper I linked to myself….
April 14th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
@drflimmer
Birkeland was working with electricity and 'ionized gas' years before the term plasma was coined by Langmuir. Electromagnetic theory, as applied to the cosmos, always had plasma in mind, it's intimately related. As a matter of fact, data had been collected in plasma labs long before the detailed observations we have today that confirm the results of the lab work and conclusions reached in the research papers.
@darkgnat
This is the core of the Milky Way:
http://images.nrao.edu/Galactic_Sources/Galactic_Center/14
Looks pretty active.
Those stars you mentioned orbiting the core weren't supposed to be there in the first place. The dark center on the time lapse is likely an optical 'block' of the core so the stars around it could be seen, like how we view the suns corona.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
"This 5,000-light-year-long, narrow beam of radiation and plasma is as bright as a Star Wars light saber and as destructive as the Death Star. "
Ah…. so is that what brightness and intensity is measured in these days?
Oversensationalism turns clear-headed people off.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Another radio-wave look at M 87's jet can be found in this recent 2008 paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.1837. As being one of the closest (if not the closest radio galaxy) with a jet, M 87 deserves close multiwavelength and temporal scrutiny from the astronomical community (and it appears it's getting it).
April 14th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
@jonhanford
There are a number of papers by EU/PC scientists concerning M87, usually as one among other examples in broader papers relating to plasma cosmology.
But according to many 'skeptics', most of those papers don't count because they're too 'old', and therefore are rejected. Yet what they fail to realize is that many of the papers were written before our new observational capabilities, of which the data confirm the results of lab experiments and the stated hypotheses. For most of those papers, new ones would be redundant. A paper gets written, observations confirm it, what more do ya want? So it took 20 years for telescope technology to catch up to the kind of detail required for confirmation. The only thing 'irrefutable' in the observations is a confirmation of EU/PC theory.
Another way to look at it.
"Mainstream theory" requires a flood of new papers, to explain new observations, because none of the previous ones can.
Peratts '86 paper is even more relevant today, in light of new observations.
http://plasmascience.net/tpu/downloadsCosmo/Peratt86TPS-I.pdf
April 14th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Sorley: From your postings It sounds like there is another mainstream-science conspiracy trying to hide the truth of your theory.
Ill just add your one to that big ole pile of conspiracy theories over in that corner over there. Thanks for the amusing words.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Jon Hanford:
solrey:
Obviously, the EU/PC proponents here misunderstand the meaning of the term Peer-reviewed (click the link).
April 14th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
The biologists have creationists, and I suppose astronomy has the EU/PC-ers. Sigh, ignorance is like entropy and increases on its own accord.
It is nonsense. Plasmas are not energy sources. The main form of electromagnetic energy sources are chemical. Plasmas are processes by which ionized matter and energy flow or evolve.
The central black hole is winding up magnetic fields due to its rotation and the hydrodynamic orbit of the plasma around it. This winding up of magnetic field increases the EM energy density which is converted into the kintetic motion of the plasma in these jets.
Lawrence B. Crowell
April 14th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
"The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization with more than 360,000 members in around 175 countries."
The IEEE journal, "Transactions in Plasma Science", insists on peer reviewed manuscripts.
IEEE is:
• The most prolific technical publisher worldwide.
• The largest technical/scientific professional organization.
• International with activities in all regions of the world and offices in Asia and Europe.
• Organizes the most number of technical meetings and has the highest aggregate attendance.
• The professional organization with the broadest technical scope with 38 Technical Societies.
What better organization to peer review the voracity of EU/PC than people who are trained in, and work with, electricity and plasma every day. Plasma cosmology is endorsed by the IEEE for this reason.
@joethesixpacker
I never specifically mentioned anything even remotely resembling a 'conspiracy', nor was it implied. The point is that EU/PC theory got it right decades ago, while the current paradigm within 'mainstream' cosmology is apparently struggling for explanations.
@lbc
Where does that magnetic field come from in the first place? Magnetic fields are created by, and are inherent with, electric currents, they don't just happen on their own.
Building and knocking down strawmen doesn't falsify a theory. It only shows that the skeptics have no valid argument against the theory.
@jonhanford
That comic reminds me of papers on; black holes, dark matter, dark energy, AGW, planet Theia, dirty snowball comets, etc. Thanks for the chuckle.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
solrey Says
"Peratts ‘86 paper is even more relevant today, in light of new observations."
It is a waste of time reading this out of date paper. It is written by a crackpot by an out and out jackass who believes in hieroglyphics as evidence of EU.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
solrey says;
“The IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization with more than 360,000 members in around 175 countries.”
Yeah right. Most are not cosmologists or astrophysicists, so they mostly don't relate to the topic at all. It is disingenuous they are all specialists in these fields.
"Plasma cosmology" has been totally rejected by the astronomical community as it does not relate to observation.
Anyone who says otherwise is a crackpot, who uses fraudulent means to deceive others from current theories and observations.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
"What better organization to peer review the voracity of EU/PC than people who are trained in, and work with, electricity and plasma every day. Plasma cosmology is endorsed by the IEEE for this reason."
What better organisation? Let's forget about organisations – let's try 'what better process'. Try Nature, Science, Astrophysical Journal, Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Astronomical Journal. Yeah, I know. You reckon they have it in for you.
You claim the IEEE endorse EU? That they, as and organisation, endorse EU? What kind of scientific organisation 'endorses' one scientific theory over another? A scientific theory is not a brand of cereal. It doesn't require advertising and endorsements. It stands or falls based on observation and support of the evidence alone. Evidence may crop up at any time to prove said theory wrong. What would the IEEE do in the case that the evidence against EU ever reached a point that they considered that their position was now untenable – retract the endorsement and issue an apology? Jesus.
And the IEEE? What – a bunch of sparkies dabbling in a bit of cosmology? Zero observing time on telescopes, no connection to the community and hence no formidable challenges to their ideas, and no immersion in the field? Seriously – it'd be like a personal trainer claiming to have designed a superior supercomputer.
If Nature, Science, ApJ, AA or any of the other respectable journals won't publish EU papers, that's because the peer reviewers have found problems with the arguments of the author or basic observational evidence that the theory cannot explain satisfactorily. If you don't like that, nobody is stopping you from starting your own journal. All the top 'impact factor' scientific journals garnered their level of respect because of the momentous discoveries and achievements published within their pages over the years. If EU bears out in the end, well, you may be able to ad the 'Cosmological EUer' to their lofty ranks. Scientists everywhere would be most surprised.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
@sbc
Peratts paper has nothing to do with heiroglyphics. I'm not aware of Peratt ever having said that heiroglyphs were proof for EU.
Peratt did utilize laser holography in his plasma research for that paper, though.
What you said is erroneous and misleading…at best.
Actually, what you're talking about is from Thornhill and Talbott. Talbotts work with petroglyphs and global mythology, combined with Thornhills knowledge of plasma physics, after their initial meeting sometime in 1997 led to research which indicated a link with the shapes, and related phenomena, of highly energized plasma morphology and the shapes of many petroglyphs and descriptions in mythology, etc., preserved across the globe. They basically just say that in the past, people witnessed more energetic electromagnetic activity than today, and recorded the events in a number of ways. The aurora on steroids, at least. There are a handful of hypotheses regarding the trigger for these events. This is not meant to prove EU, or PC, by any means. It is merely a reasonable area for further study as a logical extension of plasma cosmology, providing historical context for the EU hypothesis.
Creating, then destroying strawmen, does not equal falsification.
Part 2, of Peratts 'Evolution of the Plasma Universe'
http://plasmascience.net/tpu/downloadsCosmo/Peratt86TPS-II.pdf
April 14th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
@astrofriend
Are you aware of the history of science and the ongoing struggle for the acceptance of new theories with their supporting evidence? For a multitude of reasons, for good or ill, that's just the way it is. It's got nothing to do with 'having it in' for anyone.
EU is an independent extension of Plasma Cosmology, btw.
I said Plasma Cosmology, was endorsed by IEEE, via the peer reviewed journal, Transactions in Plasma Science. They also publish special Issues on Space and Cosmic Plasma and sponsor numerous, related conferences.
IEEE is one of the most respected scientific and professional organizations in the world, they do not take their associations, or peer review process, lightly. "Mainstream" cosmology has, and continues, to learn a lot from plasma physicists. I believe that eventually, EU/PC will be the dominant, and accurate, paradigm.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Oz,
"it is proven mathematically through empirical/observational evidence."
LOL. Mathematics is not empirical. Mathematics is a priori.
There is no observation in mathematics. If you think there is, then Lobachevsky Theorem 20 which falsifies General Relativity is my "empirical" mathematical proof.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:53 am
OilIsMastery:
According to Wikipedia, "'a priori language' is any constructed language whose vocabulary is not based on existing languages…"
Well, Klingon is 'a priori language', so…
OilIsMastery, bIjatlh 'e' yImev! yIDoghQo'. naDevvo' yIghoS.
It means: OilisMastery, shut up! Don't be silly. Go away.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:12 am
solrey:
For the second time, SOLREY, I would like to draw your attention to this PDF file from the National Society of Professional Engineers:
Code of Ethics for Engineers
In particular, I would like to draw your attention to these Rules of Practice in Section II:
Furthermore, I would like to draw your attention to Professional Obligations in Section III:
Basically it means that engineers should: Mind their own bloody business!
April 15th, 2009 at 1:28 am
solrey:
Neither do electric currents! So, I will ask you the same question again that you have previously failed to answer: What is the source of that 'electric current'?
April 15th, 2009 at 2:30 am
I can't see the previous pages of posts, yet again….
I wish all posts could be shown in a single page, the way it used to be. It seems there weren't any problems in those days.
Universe Today is a site of very high entertainment value for me. It stimulates my mind and ignites my imagination. It allows me to step out of the everyday World into a realm of awe and wonder for a few hours…. and following these discussions is a big part of it for me, cranks and conspiracies and all….
please, UT software engineers and database programmers, HELP.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Solrey:
"Where does that magnetic field come from in the first place? Magnetic fields are created by, and are inherent with, electric currents, they don’t just happen on their own."
How do you power stars (and our Sun) with huge currents, without the associated magnetic field ? Because my compass seems reluctant to point towards the Sun…
April 15th, 2009 at 4:00 am
@ solrey: 1) You state earlier "There are a number of papers by EU/PC scientists concerning M87, usually as one among other examples in broader papers relating to plasma cosmology." Where are the published papers? This study began with observations beginning in 1999 and optical variability of the jet has been known for some time. Again I ask, where are the published, peer-reviewed articles explaining this phenomena in M 87's jet. (Preferably papers, not abstracts & written in English). 2) You claim "according to many ’skeptics’, most of those papers don’t count because they’re too ‘old’, and therefore are rejected." The papers you have linked to are not irrelevant because of their age, just incorrectly used by you( or just plain incorrect ) to further your own 'theories'. 3) You state "many of the papers were written before our new observational capabilities, of which the data confirm the results of lab experiments and the stated hypotheses." Then why are no new peer-reviewed papers based on 'our new observational capabilities' being published or even posted at the arXiv.org site. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. And the real kicker: 4) You state: "For most of those papers, new ones would be redundant. A paper gets written, observations confirm it, what more do ya want?" WTF. Is this how you think science is practiced. Redundancy (read confirmation or refutation) is the name of the game in astronomy, as in most sciences. I've got a folder with over a dozen interpretations of positron excesses seen by PAMELA & ATIC, all published in the last six months alone! But you may have a point, prior to and including Peratt's 1986 papers, most of the published EU literature is redundant, rehashed and incorrect! BTW, thank IVAN3MAN for the 'pee review' link (Really, thanks, IVAN3MAN). 5) When I want more information about astronomy or cosmology, The Proceedings of the IEEE would not be the first (or 10th) journal of choice. 6) solrey mentions "voracity of EU/PC ". EU/PC really are caught in a (probably hexagonal) vortex with no logical way out.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:41 am
Ivan3man,
"According to Wikipedia…"
According to Wikipedia 2 + 2 = 5.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:10 am
a priori
adjective
1. involving deductive reasoning from a general principle to a necessary effect; not supported by fact; "an a priori judgment" [ant: a posteriori]
2. based on hypothesis or theory rather than experiment
"According to Wikipedia"…yeah, that's a reliable source. But it must be peer reviewed because folks like ivan3man would never present information that wasn't.
Excalibur and the magic compass, ivan3man's code of the engineer…they sound like broken records repeating the same irrelevant strawmen over and over again. 'arlogh Qoylu'pu'? (How many times has it been heard?)
April 15th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Solrey:
You are correct, it does become like a broken record. Any thoughts on why EU repeatedly becomes treated like a broken record ?
April 15th, 2009 at 8:18 am
How come I cannot access the previous comment pages?
April 15th, 2009 at 10:18 am
@Lawrence
"It is nonsense. Plasmas are not energy sources."
I agree, the state of plasma is caused by an external energy source in this case a black hole and it's magnetic fields.
Other sources could be a Sun with its nuclear fusion source.
Remove an external energy source and plasma reverts to it's normal state given enough time.
@ Solrey
"EU is an independent extension of Plasma Cosmology, btw."
There is NO relationship between plasma cosmology and EU.
Plasma cosmology is an addition on the standard model.
EU is an invention by some people using technobable based on plasma cosmology to pretend that they know something but in reality have no clue what they are talking about. EU is the equivalent of what the biologists call Inteligent Design, sounds nice, sounds impressive but is completely BS!
April 15th, 2009 at 10:30 am
@ Solrey
Good to see you have reverted to the jackass mentality like Anaconda and OilisMastery.
Probably turned the voltage up too high during the electroconvulsive thearphy (ECT), cause it is the only explanation for your absolutely irrelevant adoption of these EU wacky theories?
Do you dream of electrons whizzing 'round your head?
April 15th, 2009 at 11:44 am
@Bill Davis "The conventional view of the energy going into the jets is due to the putative central gravitational or magnetic source. One must ask then where the energy comes from so far from the source. The far magnetic field from a source, no matter how complex, looks like a dipole as the source becomes point-like with distance from the observer. So the magnetic field that far from the source (hundreds or thousands of light years vs a source purported to have an event horizon an AU or so in diameter) would be smoothly falling off and any reconnection or other energetic magnetic events would not take place (unless one purports another invisible source right where the action is taking place)."
I'm not sure what the argument being proposed is. Is it that the magnetic field falls off smoothly so there should not be any clumps far from the center? Or is it that the magnetic field is too weak that far from the center to support radiation?
If it's the former then the clumpiness does not have to do with inhomogenities in the magnetic field per se, but rather with the particle density of ions (mostly electrons one presumes) coming off the black hole accretion disk and following the magnetic field lines. The ultimate reason is that the accretion disk is not homogeneous in density – there are clumps of higher density material. As they get sucked down they get blasted out along the magnetic axis and form the clumps seen in the jet.
Concerning the strength of the field let's assume that we have a field strength in the accretion disk of trillions of gauss, similar to pulsars. The scale distance of the magnetic field becomes important. Let's assume it's 10 times the Schwarzchild radius of 9 billion km (for a 3 billion solar mass black hole) or 90 billion km = 600 A.U. = 0.009 light-years. HST-1 is located at 214 light-years or 24,000 times the scale distance. The magnetic field strength at HST-1 will be in the 0.1 to 1 gauss range (1.0E-5 to 1.0E-4 teslas).
The formula for gyrofrequency is:
nu = q * B / (2 * pi * m)
Plugging q = 1.60E-19 coulombs for an electron and m = 9.11E-31 kg for an electron we get: nu = 300 kHz to 3.0 MHz
So cyclotron radiation can still proceed in the radio spectrum this far from the black hole. If any of the moving plasma entrains its own magnetic field (which seems likely) then higher frequency synchrotron radiation can happen out at distances of hundreds of light-years.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:53 am
@solrey "M87 is a great example of what EU theory says we should expect from a cosmic scale dense plasma focus or z-pinch. There is a ‘gas disk’ forming around the core. M87 appears to be a relatively new DPF in the early stages of spiral formation. Multi-wavelength images and data reveal organized structure, radio lobes, filamentation and rotation of the central disk."
http://www.physorg.com/pdf110809335.pdf
Recently new observations of the core of M87 reveals the presence of a counter-jet. The Russian astronomer Iosif Shklovsky predicted the existence of a counter-jet going the opposite way from the main jet in 1964. Now that prediction has been confirmed.
The standard model predicts the existence of counter-jets. Interestingly enough, EU/PC does not. There is no fundamental reason in EU/PC for two Birkeland currents to be aligned 180 degrees from each other for the same object. So this is one case where the standard model matches the observations but the EU/PC model does not.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
@solrey "There are a number of papers by EU/PC scientists concerning M87, usually as one among other examples in broader papers relating to plasma cosmology
.
.
.
Peratts ‘86 paper is even more relevant today, in light of new observations.
http://plasmascience.net/tpu/downloadsCosmo/Peratt86TPS-I.pdf"
Interesting. The claim is made that there are many EU/PC papers dealing with M87. Then the Peratt paper is trotted out. I did a search on it. The word "M87" does not appear anywhere in it. Nor does the word "jet".
Show us some bona fide EU/PC papers dealing with M87.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Gosh… what can I say… people who never met each other saying things like I am reading here to each other. I find it almost as bad as some of those Youtube comments…
Here are a few observations which BOTH sides of the debate might consider:
Nobody (in the "conventional" camp) questions that the visible Universe consists mainly of Plasma.
and
Nobody (…) questions that currents flow through the Universe.
Peratt's notorious 1986 paper starts with "Cosmic plasma physics is at present in a state of revision which is so rapid that it is appropriate to speak of a change in paradigm". I read this as a cautionary note that the validity of the content of ANY paper on the subject might change fast. Please, take notice that this was 4 or 5 generations of PhD students ago.
Also, Peratt explicitly says that gravity does indeed play a big part in the way the Universe evolves, and that the workings of cosmic plasma have to be seen in the context of this fact…. but I won't read those 20+ pages again to find the exact page and paragraph, though.
The purpose of thunderbolts.info is to promote a sensational and speculative book of "infotainment", that's all. It's called Viral Marketing. That's a form of advertising. Exaggerations and sensational claims are allowed and expected in this context.
And finally, very, VERY important, imo: It seems that people communicating on the Internet sometimes tend to forget that on the other end of those wires, there's another real person, with real feelings and a real mind…. and yes, of course, with real prejudices.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
While poking around at the Hubble (US) site, I stumbled across the very paper this story refers to. Interested readers can find the complete 5 page paper here: http://hubblesite.org/pubinfo/pdf/2009/16/pdf.pdf . The section on possible causes proves most interesting. Check it out!
April 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
OilIsMastery:
Well, I checked that out and, in fact, according to Wikipedia: 2 + 2 = 4.
However, according to "Plasma Cosmology": 2 + 2 = 4E+26!
April 15th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Tom Marking:
Err… Tom, I assume that you must have used the Adobe "Reader Search" for that PDF file; apparently, it doesn't work for scanned files.
Actually, to be fair, the file does mention M87 and "jet(s)" on pages 17, 18, and 19. However, that still does not negate the fact that this is an old and out-of-date file. So, Solrey, show us some up-to-date EU/PC research papers on M87.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
@IVAN3MAN "Actually, to be fair, the file does mention M87 and “jet(s)” on pages 17, 18, and 19. However, that still does not negate the fact that this is an old and out-of-date file"
Yep, you are correct, Sir. That PDF file contains images of some other document and is thus, not even searchable for content. It is damn near useless.
April 15th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
@ solrey
Where does that magnetic field come from in the first place? Magnetic fields are created by, and are inherent with, electric currents, they don’t just happen on their own.
If you have a plasma subjected to some pondermotive force, in this case gravity, then the ions or protons and electrons have different transport properties. This difference is what sets up the currents which are by Faraday's law the source of the magnetic fields.
Lawrence B. Crowell
April 15th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Why do you all bother arguing with OilIs? He is just incredibly stupid, and there's no other way to put it. Evidence isn't good enough for him unless it contradicts everything else (i.e., works out for him), and he obviously can't be bothered to read a physics textbook because it's too complicated for him.
Just leave him to wallow in his pit of ignorance.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
For those interested in the first detailed observations of the jet in M 87 by HST (including HST-1) the paper can be found here: http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0004-637X/520/2/621 . While this paper mainly examines superluminal motion in the jet, there is info on the physical state of HST-1, mentioned in the above story. Well worth the read.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
IVAN3MAN: "shut up! Don’t be silly. Go away."
A real Klingon would not utter anything this weak. At the very least "If you value your life, leave! Else I will hunt you down like the tribble you are." would have been a start
April 15th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
ND:
You're right, but I was showing human restraint. However, what you stated would be translated into Klingon as:
chugh SoH lolo'laHghachlIjyInyImejmechughughobeobejIHjDIchDaqDwamwam SbIngIrurrvetlhtyIHySoHSooH'oH.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Damn it! It did not up-load properly — it looks more like German than Klingon. I'll try again…
chugh SoH lo'laHghach lIj yIn, mej! chugh ghobe', jIH DIchDaq wam SoH bIng rur vetlh yIH SoH 'oH.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
There… that's better!
April 15th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
@ Jon Hanford,
Thanks for that link! Like you said, it's well worth the read — from a reliable source!
April 15th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
P.S. Ditto, Jon Hanford, for the Hubble PDF!
April 15th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
How does one say the following in Klingon?
black hole
accretion disk
cyclotron radiation
event horizon
today is a good day for spagitification
April 16th, 2009 at 1:24 am
@ ND,
black hole — luSpet
accretion disk — N/A
cyclotron radiation — [cyclotron] tlhuD
event horizon — wanl' ghangwI'
today is a good day for spaghettification — Heghlu'meH QaQ jaj vaD [spaghettification]
April 16th, 2009 at 5:37 am
In the scientific community…
It is a fact: 80% of papers are theory, in which 95% are proven incorrect within a few years. So, before you go spouting out about some paper you read, do some checking around to see what other tangents are spurred by it.
Secondly, if you are going to use this work, then at least be able to take one main part and disect it, as if you were proving a mathematical equation. Just because you simply believe a paper you read doesn't mean anything if you don't fully understand it, nor does it mean it is true.
Third… evidence is not proof. This is taught to elementary students. Amazingly, people forget it by the time they turn 14.
There are different ways to create a magnetic field. Not all of them involve electricity. If you understand why a magnet is a magnet, then you wouldn't spout out that a magnet requires electricity. The Earth isn't plugged in, and it has a magnetic field. Nothing electrical is lining up electrons in the core. Mars has a really odd magnetic field in its southern hemisphere… definitely not caused by electricity.
Don't mind Oills. He hasn't been the same since he lost the recipe for ice.
It never ceases to amaze me, how many individuals here read a paper and read into it with ignorance. Applying what they believe to be common sense, or create a probability based on what they believe it should be based on their life experience. Fortunately, real science doesn't work this way.
Bring out the proof… so it can be disected. Don't spout out about someones paper. Layout the main idea, and line up the proof used by it. Show us you truly understand what is being said.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Oblivious
Total hypocrite. You always say absolutely nothing and then when other people do, you just think its OK to condemn them or worst berate them if they think differently for you and your inferiority complex of your own blithering ignorance. (In fact you fall on the old standard of "you must of Goggled it.)
It is clear to me (and probably other here) you have completely no idea on how scientific information is obtained nor how "science works."
I mean, how totally stupid are you to even suggest "It is a fact: 80% of papers are theory, in which 95% are proven incorrect "within a few years"
What bull ! Published papers mostly are based on actual established or new observations, and the reduction via the scientific method, to draw conclusions. There are very few instances where the "paper being wrong", it is just new observations (or theories), which confirm or deny the conclusions.
Frankly OilisMastery is a genius compared to your own stupidity.
I suggest you keep you mouth shut, before putting you foot in it yet again.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:01 am
long ago, but what the heck:
@solrey:
Either you misunderstood me or you wanted to misunderstand me.
I was talking about electromagnetic theory in general. Maxwell came up with his equations that describe everything you need about electromagnetism in the early 1870s, decades before plasma was "discovered".
@OIM
Believe it or not, I think you can construct a mathematical structure in which this is true. But you have to proove it. Mathemtics is strictly true and prooven. It means that mathematics (as strange as it sometimes is) is the only thing in the universe, we can be sure of, that is definitly correct.
@ Ivan3man
You mean, like
) – I think it's an advantage….(you English speaking guys always need an "of the" in between; I won't even try to translate the word from above…)
"Donauschifffahrtskapitänsmützenschrankschlüssel" ?
Such things are possible in German (and I could have make it much longer
April 16th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Here is a recent radio image of the M87 core made via VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry):
http://images.nrao.edu/589
It has 100 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope. I image shows that the jet collimation begins within 100 Schwarzchild radii from the black hole or ~30 light-days (one sixth the distance labeled 200 light-days). More and more evidence mounts of structure closer and closer towards the center, something the Peratt model never predicted. One more nail in the coffin of EU pseudoscience.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Polarization studies of the M87 jet have been going on for more than a decade:
http://aa.springer.de/papers/7317003/2300637.pdf
This one was done by the HST in the early 1990’s. They show a very complicated polarization structure within the jets. Go to Fig. 4a and 4b on page 641. They show little lines marking the magnetic field direction in the various jet components.
For the core (left-most bright glob in Fig. 4a) the magnetic field appears to be circularly aligned. The next bright glob going rightward in the jet (I forget the letter label) has the magnetic field line aligned with the jet direction, just as a Birkeland field-aligned current would have it. The next 3 little blobs also have the magnetic field following the jet direction.
But look at blob A (the brightest one). What the heck happened? Now the magnetic field is aligned perpendicular to the jet direction. Something must have happened to disrupt the magnetic field here. It is definitely no simple Birkeland current anymore. The magnetic field becomes parallel to jet direction in the next blob, but then shifts to perpendicular or even circular in the last blob.
So there are major shifts in the direction of the magnetic field throughout the jet.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:33 am
@Jon Hanford "This paper just presents another piece of the puzzle of ‘what is the jet of M 87 representing?’ & ‘what powers this celestial powerhouse?’"
Thanks for the URL. As usual these papers are pretty tough going to read through and understand them. They always have techniques and procedures that go way over my head.
I take it that the major results are on page 7 where they break down the results by jet component. Let's see the jet goes from 13.9 degrees off our line of sight at HST-1, to 21.3 degrees for D-East, down to 6.2 degrees for A. Of course, the brightest jet region A has the smallest line of sight making the relativistic beaming factor the highest. So the relative brightnesses seem to have little to do with intrinsic brightness, just as I suspected.
What causes the deflection angle from our LOS to vary so much? That jet is definitely not going straight. It is wiggling around like mad.
Also, if I read right the apparent velocity of HST-1 is 6.14c or six times the speed of light. Did I read that correctly? But the gamma for HST-1 is 7.21 indicating a speed of 0.99c. So I'm not getting what the difference is between these two speeds.
I'm also not understanding how the highest magnetic field of 871 microgauss can occur at region C-1 which is the 2nd farthest from the center. So these results don't make a whole lot of sense to me.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:13 am
@ Tom Marking
I didn't check it, but if they say 6.14c, they are most likely referring to superluminol speed. This is a relativistic effect that something seems to be faster than the speed of light. But if you do the math, you'll find that the thing is still flying slower than c.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
@ DrFlimmer,
Germans love long words, don't they?
April 17th, 2009 at 4:24 am
@ Ivan3man
Why do you think so?
April 17th, 2009 at 10:21 am
@ Tom Marking, You bring up a good point about the crookedness of the jet and changes in its' polarization. It is thought that, like a spinning top, the jet(s) from the central black hole wobble or precess over a period of time, illuminating different regions in the galaxy's outer portions. Active galaxies with 2 jets (in the radio portion of the EM spectrum) are usually good examples of this jet precession, with wildly distorted symmetrical jets. Dr Flimmer posted an accurate reply to your question on superluminal velocities. I'll have to get back to you on your question about magnetic field strength variations when I get a chance.
April 17th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
@Joh Hanford "You bring up a good point about the crookedness of the jet and changes in its’ polarization. It is thought that, like a spinning top, the jet(s) from the central black hole wobble or precess over a period of time, illuminating different regions in the galaxy’s outer portions. Active galaxies with 2 jets (in the radio portion of the EM spectrum) are usually good examples of this jet precession, with wildly distorted symmetrical jets. Dr Flimmer posted an accurate reply to your question on superluminal velocities. I’ll have to get back to you on your question about magnetic field strength variations when I get a chance."
I guess I don't understand the source of the precession in this case and also in the case of pulsars. Doesn't there have to be a nearby gravitational object to cause the black hole to precess, similar to the moon causing the earth's 26,000 year precession period? Or can a black hole/pulsar self-precess for some reason?
Either way, this is certainly not some simple Birkeland current we're talking about here, nor some standard dipole magnetic field that falls off as the inverse cube of the distance. These are some seriously complicated structures, these M87 jets. Much more complex than I expected them to be.
@solrey "There are a number of papers by EU/PC scientists concerning M87"
Let the record reflect that when pushed, Solrey couldn't provide a single EU/PC paper dealing with M87.
April 18th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Yes, jets from active galaxies can precess but usually with some help (galaxy mergers & central BH mergers are some sources of energy for precession to occur. I found this link to radio galaxy images, many showing the effects of precession of their jet(s): http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~abridle/radiogal.htm . Check out some of the double-lobed galaxies and the description of their contorted jets. And as you note these jets from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are complex entities. @ solrey: " Let the record reflect that when pushed, Solrey couldn’t provide a single EU/PC paper dealing with M87. " Or MACS J0717 . Still waiting.
April 18th, 2009 at 8:37 am
@ Tom Marking: Check out this double-double jet source 3C 75. 2 double-lobed radio galaxies, with both radio jets precessing! It's one of my favorites! here: http://images.nrao.edu/AGN/Radio_Galaxies/30
April 18th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
@ Jon Hanford
Since M87 is a HUGH elliptical, mergers have been quite likely. Could be a reason…
April 18th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
@ DrFlimmer, Most of the galaxies that possess jet(s) are giant elliptical galaxies near the center of large galaxy clusters( M 87 is in the nearby Virgo Cluster). Merger activity is a common suspect in an explanation of jet formation.