Switching on a black hole. Click for larger. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/M.Machacek; Optical: ESO/VLT; Infrared: NASA/JPL/Caltech

Check this out!  A galactic collision wakens a black hole.  If you live in the Southern Hemisphere you can see this if you have a telescope, the coordinates are (Equatorial)  RA: 20h 17m 57s   Dec: -70°44′23″

From NASA:

This composite image of data from three different telescopes shows an ongoing collision between two galaxies, NGC 6872 and IC 4970. X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown in purple, while Spitzer Space Telescope’s infrared data is red and optical data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) is colored red, green and blue.

Astronomers think that supermassive black holes exist at the center of most galaxies. Not only do the galaxies and black holes seem to co-exist, they are apparently inextricably linked in their evolution. To better understand this symbiotic relationship, scientists have turned to rapidly growing black holes — so-called active galactic nucleus (AGN) — to study how they are affected by their galactic environments.

The latest data from Chandra and Spitzer show that IC 4970, the small galaxy at the top of the image, contains an AGN, but one that is heavily cocooned in gas and dust. This means in optical light telescopes, like the VLT, there is little to see. X-rays and infrared light, however, can penetrate this veil of material and reveal the light show that is generated as material heats up before falling onto the black hole (seen as a bright point-like source).

Despite this obscuring gas and dust around IC 4970, the Chandra data suggest that there is not enough hot gas in IC 4970 to fuel the growth of the AGN. Where, then, does the food supply for this black hole come from? The answer lies with its partner galaxy, NGC 6872. These two galaxies are in the process of undergoing a collision, and the gravitational attraction from IC 4970 has likely pulled over some of NGC 6872’s deep reservoir of cold gas (seen prominently in the Spitzer data), providing a new fuel supply to power the giant black hole.

Hubble's latest Ultra Deep Field image. Click for larger (you will be glad you did). Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory and the University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (UCO/Lick Observatory and Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team

Just look at what Hubble’s new camera can do!

Astronomers aimed Hubble at the same region of the sky as the famous Deep Field image taken in 2004.  This time around they used the WFC3 camera which can see in the near infrared allowing an even deeper look into the universe.

Click the image for a larger version, the faintest and reddest galaxies were formed just 600 million years after the Big Bang – Hubble’s deepest look into the past so far.

Visit the Hubble site (they have a zoomable image too!)

Ghostly Spokes on the rings of Saturn. Click for larger. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The Cassini spacecraft has returned a fine example of the phenomenon of “spokes” in Saturn’s rings. Saturn has made (almost) one orbit since the Voyager spacecraft fist discovered the rings in 1980 and 1981.

Here’s a short YouTube video of the spokes.

The Cassini caption:

Bright spokes grace Saturn’s B ring in this Cassini image.

To learn more about the ghostly radial markings called spokes, see PIA11144 and PIA08288. Spokes appear bright when they are viewed at phase, or Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, angles higher than about 45 degrees. The phase angle in this image is 61 degrees.

Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across) orbits between the A ring and the thin F ring. Epimetheus (113 kilometers, or 70 miles across) orbits beyond the F ring in the top left of the image. The bright dot in the top right is a star.

Scale in the original image was 71 kilometers (44 miles) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of 1.5 and contrast-enhanced to aid visibility.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from about 12 degrees above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 22, 2009. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (746,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 61 degrees.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.

The term “sooty star” or “carbon star” almost makes them sound like big chunks of coal.  You know that wouldn’t work.  In the interest of brevity, quick definition of a carbon star is an evolved giant (or sometimes a dwarf) with circumstellar “clouds” of carbon dust.  It’s seeing the star through this atmosphere of carbon that gives it its red appearance; because carbon absorbs “blue” light.  Classical carbon stars are massive; non-classical less so.  Most are long-period variables.

Image:  Greg Parker, New Forest Observatory

This is an image of La Superba – Y Canum Venaticorum (Y CVn), one of the reddest stars in the sky, and among the brightest of the red giants.  It’s a semi-regular variable carbon star.

Image:  H. Olafsson, Stockholm Observatory (et al)

This is TT Cygni.  The ring you see around the star is a shell of gas expanding outward.

Classical carbon stars are single giants at the end of their lifespan.  Non-classical carbon stars are those in a binary system where one is a white dwarf and the other a red giant.  The giant accreted carbon from its companion, now the dwarf, to become the carbon star.

Carbon stars are somewhat rare, and they quickly evolve out of this phase because they lose tremendous amounts of mass.  Their carbon “shell” becomes part of the interstellar dust; providing the raw materials for the creation of new generations of stars and planets.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ah, it’s a rods and cones thing.