Carinae Majoris II

Greetings to anyone who may come across this site. However, this site is now over a year old (as of 24.07.2011). This is also my old blogging site, and since November 2010 it has been replaced with:

CARINAE MAJORIS

Recent posts include:

A Radio Transient In M82: An SS433 Analogue?

Lying at a distance of 3.6Mpc (Freedman et al. 1994), M82 is observed to be one of the most tumultuous galaxies in the local group, with rapid periods of both star formation and evolution: a designated starburst galaxy (Kronberg et al. 1985; Rieke et al. 1993; Pedlar & Muxlow 1995). In addition to this intense star formation, radio observations have revealed approximately 60 compact radio sources in the central region of M82 (McDonald et al. 2002). A quarter of these sources are of unknown origin. As well as hosting a variety of compact sources, continual radio surveys have also found various transient sources of an undetermined nature (e.g Kronberg & Sramek 1985; Muxlow et al. 1994). Read more…

M33 X-7: Evolution Of An Unusual Black Hole Binary System

In a distant galaxy hidden away in one of the furthest corners of our Universe, lives an extraordinarily massive black hole orbiting around its sister binary star in a highly unusual tight orbit: named M33 X-7. M33 X-7 has been observed as one of the most interesting astrophysical objects discovered, with a multitude of unusual properties: the tight orbit, the large masses of the star and black hole, the X-ray luminosity of the black hole and why its companion star is less luminous than one would expect, given its mass. This provides a gap, a gap for a model which explains all of these observations (Abubekerov et al. 2009). Read more…

I hope any old readers and commenters will come and join me over on my new site: Carinae Majoris! Thank you for reading, and goodbye!

Carinae Majoris

Greetings to anyone who may come across this site. However, this site is now over a year old (as of 24.07.2011). This is also my old blogging site, and since November 2010 it has been replaced with:

CARINAE MAJORIS

Recent posts include:

SMBH NGC 3783: A Rapidly Spinning Black Hole

As a result of the seminal works of Penrose (1969) and Blandfor & Znajek (1977), the spin property of a black hole is now universally considered to play an important role in the energy properties of active galactic nuclei. The role of this property is also considered important role in the production of relativistic jets such as those seen in many classes of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), whereby the magnetic extraction of the rotational energy of a spinning black hole is believed to be essential in causing these relativistic jetted outbursts (Brenneman et al. 2011). Indeed, it is this fundamental property of the central super massive black hole (SMBH) that is considered crucial in determining the energy output and directional intensity of such bursts from AGNs i.e. whether the source is radio-quiet or radio-loud; Wilson & Colbert (1995). Although it is worth noting that the accretion rate of course plays a role of equal importance. Read More…

SDSS J0952+2552: A Confirmed Dual AGN

In the current Λ-CDM cosmological model (Rees et al. 1984; Davis et al. 1985; Jenkins et al. 1998), the growth of galaxies at low and intermediate redshift must occur primarily viacollisions between galaxies.  This fact has been used to explain a number of observations of distant galaxies, in particular the existence of active galactic nuclei (AGN). The argument goes that collisions between galaxies torques the atomic gas in the outskirts of the galaxies, causing the gas to flow in toward the center, providing fuel for central starbursts and AGN outbursts (García-Burillo et al. 2006). Read More…

I hope any old readers and commenters will come and join me over on my new site: Carinae Majoris! Thank you for reading, and goodbye!