Stars Are Being Born in the Depths of a Black Hole
Located about 5.8 billion light years from Earth in the Phoenix Constellation, astronomers have confirmed the first example of a galaxy cluster where large numbers of stars are being born at its core.
Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the cosmos that are held together by gravity, consisting of hundreds or thousands of galaxies embedded in hot gas, as well as invisible dark matter. The largest supermassive black holes known are in galaxies at the centers of these clusters.
For decades, astronomers have looked for galaxy clusters containing rich nurseries of stars in their central galaxies. Instead, they found powerful, giant black holes pumping out energy through jets of high-energy particles and keeping the gas too warm to form many stars.
Now, scientists have compelling evidence for a galaxy cluster where stars are forming at a furious rate, apparently linked to a less effective black hole in its center. In this unique cluster, the jets from the central black hole instead appear to be aiding in the formation of stars. Researchers used new data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, and the NSF’s Karl Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to build on previous observations of this cluster.
Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/G.Schellenberger et al.; Optical:SDSS
Last Updated: Nov. 20, 2019
Editor: Yvette Smith
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I’ll try this again.
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William Ward
November 29, 2019 at 1:46 am
You suggested that this conversion to neutrons is a lower state of energy, but I’m not sure how that could be. Free neutrons spontaneously decay. Bound neutrons in unstable nuclei also decay. So the decayed state should be the lower energy state it would seem to me.
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Basically it has to do with how nuclei respond to excess numbers of protons or neutrons. If the nucleus lies in the valley of stability, it won’t decay. The further away from the valley a nucleus will tend to be less stable (have lower binding energy) and undergo either electron beta decay or positron beta decay. Too many protons or neutrons will simply cause the excess to drip off–called the drip line. There’s a drip line for excess protons and another for excess neutrons.
If a nucleus has too many neutrons, the number of nucleons lie inside the neutron drip line, and by undergoing beta decay the nucleus gains stability, it will beta decay–convert a neutron to a proton, emit an electron, and emit an electron anti-neutrino.
Likewise, If a nucleus has too many protons, the number of nucleons lie inside the proton drip line, and by undergoing beta decay the nucleus gains stability, it will beta decay–convert a proton to a neutron, emit a positron, and emit an electron neutrino.
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We don’t know if gravity can force protons and electrons to combine to become neutrons.
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Yes we do. Where do you think the neutrons come from when the Sun converts hydrogen into helium?
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Where does the antineutrino come from?
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What anti-neutrino? Lepton number, like baryon number, tends to be conserved in most cases. If a proton and an electron combine to form a neutron, it would emit an electron neutrino–that conserves both baryon number and lepton number. We have detected neutrinos from SN1987A. That would happen if the core of SN1987A collapsed to form neutrons.
Jim
in the Depths of a Black Hole – nothing to see here.
Move along.
https://www.space.com/into-a-black-hole-whats-inside.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=in+the+Depths+of+a+Black+Hole&oq=in+the+Depths+of+a+Black+Hole&aqs=chrome.