Hubble Spots Black Hole Beam Causing Stellar Eruptions

  • Released Thursday, September 26, 2024

In a surprise finding, astronomers, using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of M87, a huge galaxy 54 million light years away, seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory.

The stars, called novae, are not caught inside the jet, but in a dangerous area near it.

A nova erupts in a double-star system where an aging, swelled-up, normal star spills hydrogen onto a burned-out white dwarf companion star. When the white dwarf has collected a big enough layer of hydrogen, it explodes out into space.

For more information, visit https://nasa.gov/hubble.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Paul Morris: Lead Producer

Music Credit:
“Into Orbit” by Laurent Dury [SACEM] via Koka Media [SACEM] and Universal Production Music France, [SACEM] and Universal Production Music.

Vertical Version

This vertical version of the episode is for IGTV or Snapchat. The IGTV episode can be pulled into Instagram Stories and the regular Instagram feed.



Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. However, please credit individual items as indicated above.

Release date

This page was originally published on Thursday, September 26, 2024.
This page was last updated on Friday, September 6, 2024 at 4:44 PM EDT.


Missions

This page is related to the following missions: