nicholasdewart

[nicholasdewart]

Black Hole Sculpts an Hourglass Galaxy

When it comes to galaxies, our home, the Milky Way, is rather neat and orderly. Other galaxies can be much more chaotic. For example, the Markarian 573 galaxy has a black hole at its center which is spewing beams of light in opposite directions, giving its inner regions more of an hourglass shape. 

Our scientists have long been fascinated by this unusual structure, seen above in optical light from the Hubble Space Telescope. Now their search has taken them deeper than ever — all the way into the super-sized black hole at the center of one galaxy.

So, what do we think is going on? When the black hole gobbles up matter, it releases a form of high-energy light called radiation (particularly in the form of X-rays), causing abnormal patterns in the flow of gas. 

Let’s take a closer look.

Meet Markarian 573, the galaxy at the center of this image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, located about 240 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cetus. It’s the galaxy’s odd structure and the unusual motions of its components that inspire our scientists to study it.

As is the case with other so-called active galaxies, the ginormous black hole at the center of Markarian 573 likes to eat stuff. A thick ring of dust and gas accumulates around it, forming a doughnut. This ring only permits light to escape the black hole in two cone-shaped regions within the flat plane of the galaxy — and that’s what creates the hourglass, as shown in the illustration above.

Zooming out, we can see the two cones of emission (shown in gold in the animation above) spill into the galaxy’s spiral arms (blue). As the galaxy rotates, gas clouds in the arms sweep through this radiation, which makes them light up so our scientists can track their movements from Earth.

What happens next depends on how close the gas is to the black hole. Gas that’s about 2,500 light-years from the black hole picks up speed and streams outward (shown as darker red and blue arrows). Gas that’s farther from the black hole also becomes ionized, but is not driven away and continues its motion around the galaxy as before.

Here is an actual snapshot of the inner region of Markarian 573, combining X-ray data (blue) from our Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio observations (purple) from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico with a visible light image (gold) from our Hubble Space Telescope. Given its strange appearance, we’re left to wonder: what other funky shapes might far-off galaxies take?

For more information about the bizarre structure of Markarian 573, visit http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12657  

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[nicholasdewart]

Stevie Nicks: “You want your journals written by hand in a book”

Stevie Nicks hangs out with the ladies in Haim, and when she hears none of them journal (Este says she keeps notes on her phone), Nicks brings out one of her leather journals (see above) and tells them how it’s done:

On the right-hand side of the page you write what happened that day, and on the left-hand side you write poems, so when you have an evening where you’re like, “I’m gonna light all the candles and I’m gonna put the fire on, and I’m gonna go sit at the piano and write,” you can dip into your diaries and instantly find a poem and begin.

Then she tells them why they should write on paper::

“You want your journals written by hand in a book, because someday, if you have daughters — I don’t have daughters, but I have fairy goddaughters, thousands of them — all of these books are gonna go to them, and they’re gonna sit around just like we are now, and they’re gonna read them out loud, and they’re going to be able to know what my life was.” Then, pointedly, to Este: “And they’re not gonna find it in your phone.”

Here’s a clip of her talking about writing from her documentary, In Your Dreams:

Filed under: journaling

[nicholasdewart]

5/27/17 What can I say? #descendents make me run faster! #losangeles #cardio #running #punk (at Los Angeles, California)

[nicholasdewart]

5/25/17 Happy New Moon everyone. We are in the throes of body slamming energy, new nodal placements bringing a fresh 18 month cycle and Venus getting burned in Aries but fear not...there's a new video up that can help you makes sense of it: https://m.facebook.com/nicholasdewartastrology/ #newmoon #newmooningemini #gemininewmoon #astrology #saturn #mars #venus #astrologersofinstagram #nldivination (at Hollywood)

[nicholasdewart]

April 19, 2016 - Hollywood, CA - Boxing Day 1963 - Beatles and Football (Soccer) 

I always felt that Rock N Roll music birthed as a child of the Pluto Uranus co-presence and then conjunction that happened in the 1960s.  

A good way to study the cycles of planets and what they represent is to trace the events that manifest around the date of their motion stations either direct or retrograde. 

I find it fascinating that on Thursday, Dec. 26, 1963 Pluto went retrograde, which coincided with The Beatles releasing their first single in the United States, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and apparently a crazy day in soccer that ensued. 

Pay attention to the worldly events that are bound to happen Thursday, April 20, 2017 at Pluto stations retrograde at 5:46am PDT. 

N.L.Dewart

[nicholasdewart]

#NowPlaying Today Is The Day by Yo La Tengo - Today is almost the day....not very Zen of me.

[nicholasdewart]

#NowPlaying The Walk by The Cure - Listening to The Cure makes me want to walk in the rain and since it happens to be one of those rare occations that it's raining in LA....

[nicholasdewart]

12/11/16 Funny I was just caught up in how beautiful the moon looked...she just had me captivated the moment I saw her tonight. Here at 5:04pm PST in Los Angeles, CA she's at 23 Taurus applying within a 2 degree opposition to my natal Moon in Scorpio... opposites attract. #moon #astrology #taurus #scorpio (at Hollywood)

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Happy Sunday #tarot #sunday #sun #majorarcana (at Hollywood)

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#NowPlaying Ever Fallen in Love by Katy Goodman & Greta Morgan - I love the Buzzcocks!

[nicholasdewart]

10/20/16 - Thursday - What's on the menu for today? 7:03am PDT (at Hollywood)

[nicholasdewart]

#NowPlaying Neat Neat Neat by The Damned

[nicholasdewart]

10/1/2016 - #hope Someday I'll be the only one. #descendants #palladium (at The Hollywood Palladium)

[nicholasdewart]

9/30/2016 Beech Tree in Beverly Hills, CA 2:11pm #natureintransits (at Beverly Hills, California)

[nicholasdewart]

Sleater-Kinney, Spin Magazine, 1997.

Photo: Robert Sebree

[nicholasdewart]

#NowPlaying LA3 by Moby