Waltzing black holes, star-destroying black holes; it’s a black hole bonanza as the American Astronomical Society meets this week in Washington DC.

First, the orbiting pairs: Just about every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its heart that is millions if not billions the size of our sun. Logic would suggest that when two galaxies merge, astronomers would see the two great black holes orbiting each other, but so far they’ve had tough luck, astronomer Julie Comerford says. “We expect the universe to be littered with these waltzing black holes,” Comerford said. “But until recently, only a few had ever been found.” Those missing black hole pairs posed problems for theories of how galaxies merge and grow [Wired.com].

Comerford, however, announced at the meeting that her team has found 33 new pairs of black holes in galactic centers. When the black hole dances toward Earth, its light is blueshifted — meaning it has a shorter wavelength. The team identified waltzing pairs by looking for instances when one black hole was blueshifted and the other redshifted [Wired.com]. Those black holes orbit each other at 200 km per second, but they’re not in a close embrace—several thousand light years separate each pair.

Next, the star destroyers: Astronomers see plenty of supermassive black holes, whether paired or not. And they see lots of black holes close to our sun in mass, like the kind a single star’s supernovae creates. But what about the black holes in between? Black holes measuring in the range of hundreds to thousands of solar masses have only existed in theory up till now and observational evidence of these “medium-sized” singularities has been very hard to come by [Discovery News].

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory, however, just discovered one of these intermediate black holes. Not only did Chandra catch a black hole in the missing size hanging around a globular cluster, it also caught the black hole in the process of ripping apart a star. In this case, that star was probably a white dwarf: The observations suggest oxygen is in abundance, but there is a deficiency in hydrogen, suggesting that the material was being stripped from an old, white dwarf star. (The lack of hydrogen shows that the stellar object has burnt up its fuel) [Discovery News].

For more on the Chandra discovery, check out Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy post. And for more about how black holes could have shaped the early universe, read the DISCOVER story “Are Black Holes the Architects of the Universe?”

Related Content:
80beats: Far-Off Quasar Could Be the Spark That Ignites a Galaxy
80beats: Researchers Spot an Ancient Starburst from the Universe’s Dark Ages
Bad Astronomy: Monster Black Hole Devours Dead Star
DISCOVER: Are Black Holes the Architects of the Universe?

Image: NASA / Chandra

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has taken detailed pictures of what scientists are saying is evidence that large lakes of liquid water sat on the planet’s surface relatively recently–which is to say, about 3 billion years ago.

MRO imaged several deep depressions that scientists previously attributed to the sublimation of underground ice 4 billion years ago. However, the new images show that the depressions are connected by long channels, and researchers say these channels could only be formed by running water, and not by ice turning directly into gas. The scientists’ ageing of the region, which on bodies like Mars is done by counting craters, suggests the features formed during the so-called Hesperian Epoch on the Red Planet [BBC News]. Essentially, this means that there was water on Mars a billion years more recently than previously thought. The findings were published in the journal Geology.

The researchers aren’t quite sure how the lakes, which are up to 12 miles long, were filled with water. Scientists had believed that the planet was a frozen wasteland during the Hesperian Epoch, but researchers now suggest that it may have had short-lived warm phases. Mars could have been warmed by volcanic activity, meteorite impacts or even orbital shifts. The result would be a temporary increase in planetary temperature as the gases created in those events thickened the Martian atmosphere [SPACE.com]. Regardless of how it happened, scientists and space nerds are giddy about the possibility that these lakes could have once harbored life.

A few months ago, NASA announced their finding of a huge ice sheet under the Martian surface, and where there’s water, there could have once been life. According to researcher Sanjeev Gupta, “potentially life could have survived in these lakes, we would be talking about microbial life…. But now we have shown that there was standing water, this is another avenue to explore” [Telegraph]. The researchers are widening their search to include spots along Mars’ equator to determine how large an area the lakes covered.

Related Content:
80beats: NASA Finds Big Stash of Water on Mars
80beats: Spirit Rover’s 6th Anniversary on Mars Is Likely Its Last
80beats: New Map Suggests Huge Ocean Once Dominated Mars’ Northern Hemisphere

Image: NASA/JPL/Imperial College of London

I’m at the annual winter American Astronomical Society meeting, and just left an interesting address by the new NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. He’s a former astronaut (he was on the initial Hubble Shuttle mission back in 1990) and Marine corps pilot, but now he’s the top guy at NASA.

It’s a tradition for the NASA head to speak at the AAS meetings. I’ve heard talks from ex-Admins Dan Goldin, Sean O’Keefe, and Mike Griffin, and this one was very different. NASA is at a very tumultuous point in its history, with the Shuttle winding down, the future of the Constellation rocket program uncertain and under fire, and even the direction of the agency itself unclear. Because of this, and because President Obama has not made a public policy statement about these issues yet, Bolden could not give a nuts-and-bolts speech, which is understandable. For those of you who weren’t following my live comments on Twitter during the talk, here are some of the highlights.

He was very clear that we all need to do what we can to inspire kids about science. In a remarkable turn, he literally choked up on stage while talking about putting together a telescope with his granddaughter, and saying we need to get more kids to look through eyepieces. "Look at this!" he said, "This is what we do!" That resonates with me, of course; I’ve made that exact comment on this blog dozens of times.

He also said that manned space flight would not be paid off the back of science. This generated applause from the audience. However, I’ve heard that before, just a few years ago from Mike Griffin… and then saw science missions’ funding cut back to pay for the lunar exploration program. So while I agree with Bolden’s sentiment, I don’t know if he can pull that particular feat off. I sure hope he can.

When asked about the issues with delays in the Shuttle replacement, he stated that "This President won’t be the one who presides over the demise of the manned space program." (quoting from my memory of what he said). He also stated how strongly Obama supports science; something we already know but it’s damn good to hear it again.

He also said, "If you had told me 20 years ago that we wouldn’t be back on the Moon by now, I’d have said you were smoking dope." That was great to hear! I know a lot of us outside of NASA have been saying that for years, but it was refreshing and wonderful to hear the head of NASA saying it, and saying it so frankly. He even repeated the statement to make sure we got it. Very cool indeed.

Overall, Bolden reinforced how committed NASA is to science — something that needs to be said when addressing 1000+ astronomers, who traditionally and by large majority tend to support unmanned robotic exploration over the much more expensive and usually less-scientifically oriented manned flight. He stressed that we all need to be teachers, and we all need to be the inspiration for the next generation. I agree in general, and certainly in specifics about inspiration.

So this first date with the NASA chief went as a lot of first dates go. Hopeful, with some reservations on promises made based on the delivery of further evidence, but… hopeful.

[During the talk I sat next to my dear friend and women-full-of-awesome Pamela Gay, who has posted her thoughts on this as well.]