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Subject Black hole in distant galaxy sets off huge space explosions, say astronomers

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Original Message Black hole: Particles streaming from a black hole at the center of a galaxy some 23 million light-years away are superheating hydrogen gas to millions of degrees and creating huge shock waves, say scientists , The supermassive black hole at the center of a far-off galaxy is putting on a fireworks display of cosmic proportions.

Scientists captured the brilliant display in new images and a video tour of the spiral galaxy Messier 106 (also called NGC 4258). An amazing composite picture was created by combining data from three NASA telescopes and a National Science Foundation (NSF) telescope trained on Messier 106, which is about 23 million light-years away.

While the galaxy is spiral in shape, like the Milky Way, Messier 106 has two extra swirling arms that glow in X-ray, optical and radio light. These features are called anomalous arms and intersect the galaxy at an angle instead of aligning with the main galactic disk. [See Amazing Images of the X-Ray Universe]

The combination of data from multiple telescopes revealed that the swirling arms of Messier 106 are streams of shock waves and superheated gas. The NSF telescope picked up radio waves from high-energy particles streaming from the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. Infrared light data gathered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows that these bursts of particles create shock waves, similar to sonic booms, when they strike the main disk of the galaxy. The shock waves heat up huge pockets of hydrogen gas to thousands of degrees.
[link to www.csmonitor.com]

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