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Has ESA's GAIA spacecraft discovered the missing link in Black Holes?
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By European Space Agency
What’s harder than flying a single satellite in Earth orbit? Flying two – right beside each other, at proximities that would normally trigger collision avoidance manoeuvres.
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Research scientist Alfonso Delgado Bonal makes important discoveries about patterns in cloud movements while thriving within the NASA Goddard family.
Name: Alfonso Delgado Bonal
Formal Job Classification: Research scientist
Organization: Climate and Radiation Laboratory, Science Directorate (Code 613)
Alfonso Delgado Bonal is a research scientist for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Climate and Radiation Laboratory in Greenbelt, Md.NASA What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?
As a theoretical physicist, I study data from the DSCOVR satellite to analyze daytime variability of cloud properties. We are discovering diurnal (daylight) cloud patterns using a single sensor.
What is your educational background?
I have an undergraduate degree in theoretical physics from the University of Salamanca, Spain. I have a master’s in astrophysics from the University of Valencia, Spain, and a second master’s in space technology from the University of Alcalá, Spain. In 2015, I received a doctorate in theoretical physics from the University of Salamanca.
From 2016–2018, I had a postdoctoral fellowship with the Spanish National Research Agency. From 2018–2020, I had a postdoctoral fellowship at Goddard’s Climate and Radiation Laboratory.
I also have an undergraduate degree in economics from the Spanish Open University and an undergraduate degree in law from the University of La Rioja, Spain. I am considering returning to school for a master’s in law to sit for the bar.
What fascinates you about clouds?
As a child, I remember watching clouds moving. I never questioned whether these clouds moved randomly or in a pattern. One day, Sasha Marshak, my supervisor and one of my mentors, asked me to determine if clouds move randomly or in a pattern.
Clouds have a profound impact on our planet. They regulate the Earth’s energy budget. Some clouds reflect radiation that cools our planet while other clouds trap radiation which warms our planet. Cloud behavior is one of the most important factors in regulating climate change.
What is the data from the DSCOVR satellite telling you?
DSCOVR is the only satellite capturing data that shows the entire sunlit part of the Earth at once. The left part of an image is early morning and the right part of an image is nearing sunset. For the first time, we can see how clouds evolve throughout the entire day. Other satellites only capture either a fixed time or a small region of the planet.
We discovered that clouds do not move randomly, they move in patterns. We measure these patterns in terms of cloud fraction (the amount of sky covered by clouds), cloud height and cloud optical thickness. In general, at noon we have the maximum cloud coverage over land and the minimum cloud coverage over sea. Also, at noon, clouds are generally lower and thicker. There is some predictability in the general pattern of cloud movement.
Coming from Spain, what was the most unusual cultural aspect you had to adjust to when you joined your lab?
When I arrived from Spain, my English was not great and I did not understand the cultural aspects. My first email was from Headquarters thanking the whole NASA family. The idea of a work family was something unfamiliar. To me, family meant blood relatives.
After one or two years, I felt that members of my lab were indeed my family. They really care about me as a person and I feel the same about them. We have parties where we do not talk about work, we talk about ourselves and our families. Our lab has people from all over the world, and we all share the same feeling about being part of the NASA family. We have a family at home and also a family at NASA.
Every time I see Sasha, he always asks about my family and about myself before talking about the work. Lazaros Oreopoulos, Sasha’s supervisor, does the same. They really inspire me.
As your mentors, how did Sasha and Lazaros made you feel welcome?
I came here from a different world. I was doing theoretical physics in Spain but my NASA post doc involved data analysis, which is what I am doing now. Sasha also came from a different county and also had a strong mathematical background. I felt that he understood me and the challenges before me. He made me feel extremely welcome and explained some cultural aspects. He made sure that I understood how the lab worked, introduced me to everyone, and invited my wife and me to dinner at his home. He really made me feel part of the NASA family.
Lazaros strikes the perfect balance between being a respected supervisor and acting like family. He always has a winter party for the entire office where everyone brings in homemade food from their country. Our lab has people from many different countries. Lazaros always checks in with me to see how I am doing. He has created a marvelous place where we all feel like family and do great work.
Lazaros and Sasha gave me a chance when they invited me to join their lab. I do not have words to thank them enough for believing in me when I was just a post doc and for guiding me through my career and, most of all, for their incredible advice about life. They are now both family to me.
What advice have your mentors given you?
Both Sasha and Lazaros taught me creativity. They both always ask questions. Even if a question seems at first impossible to answer, eventually you will develop the tools to answer the questions. It was Sasha who asked me if clouds have random behavior or move in patterns. It has taken me a few years to answer his question and now we are making unexpected and important discoveries about clouds.
What do you do for fun?
Now that I have two young children, my fun now is spending as much time as I can with my wife and children. My wife is a biologist and I have learned a lot from her.
What book are you currently reading?
I love reading. I am rereading the “Iliad,” one of my favorites. My favorite book is “The Little Prince.” I read my children a bedtime story every night and now that they are a little older, sometimes they read one to me.
What is your one big dream?
To see my kids have great lives and be happy.
What is your motto?
“If you’re going to try, go all the way.” —Charles Bukowski
By Elizabeth M. Jarrell
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.
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Last Updated Nov 26, 2024 EditorJamie AdkinsContactRob Garnerrob.garner@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
People of Goddard Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) Goddard Space Flight Center People of NASA Explore More
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By NASA
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By NASA
This illustration shows a red, early-universe dwarf galaxy that hosts a rapidly feeding black hole at its center. Using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of astronomers have discovered this low-mass supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. It is pulling in matter at a phenomenal rate — over 40 times the theoretical limit. While short lived, this black hole’s “feast” could help astronomers explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the early universe.NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/M. Zamani A rapidly feeding black hole at the center of a dwarf galaxy in the early universe, shown in this artist’s concept, may hold important clues to the evolution of supermassive black holes in general.
Using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of astronomers discovered this low-mass supermassive black hole just 1.5 billion years after the big bang. The black hole is pulling in matter at a phenomenal rate — over 40 times the theoretical limit. While short lived, this black hole’s “feast” could help astronomers explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the early universe.
Supermassive black holes exist at the center of most galaxies, and modern telescopes continue to observe them at surprisingly early times in the universe’s evolution. It’s difficult to understand how these black holes were able to grow so big so rapidly. But with the discovery of a low-mass supermassive black hole feasting on material at an extreme rate so soon after the birth of the universe, astronomers now have valuable new insights into the mechanisms of rapidly growing black holes in the early universe.
The black hole, called LID-568, was hidden among thousands of objects in the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s COSMOS legacy survey, a catalog resulting from some 4.6 million Chandra observations. This population of galaxies is very bright in the X-ray light, but invisible in optical and previous near-infrared observations. By following up with Webb, astronomers could use the observatory’s unique infrared sensitivity to detect these faint counterpart emissions, which led to the discovery of the black hole.
The speed and size of these outflows led the team to infer that a substantial fraction of the mass growth of LID-568 may have occurred in a single episode of rapid accretion.
LID-568 appears to be feeding on matter at a rate 40 times its Eddington limit. This limit relates to the maximum amount of light that material surrounding a black hole can emit, as well as how fast it can absorb matter, such that its inward gravitational force and outward pressure generated from the heat of the compressed, infalling matter remain in balance.
These results provide new insights into the formation of supermassive black holes from smaller black hole “seeds,” which current theories suggest arise either from the death of the universe’s first stars (light seeds) or the direct collapse of gas clouds (heavy seeds). Until now, these theories lacked observational confirmation.
The new discovery suggests that “a significant portion of mass growth can occur during a single episode of rapid feeding, regardless of whether the black hole originated from a light or heavy seed,” said International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer Hyewon Suh, who led the research team.
A paper describing these results (“A super-Eddington-accreting black hole ~1.5 Gyr after the Big Bang observed with JWST”) appears in the journal Nature Astronomy.
About the Missions
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
News Media Contact
Elizabeth Laundau
NASA Headquarters
Washington, DC
202-923-0167
elizabeth.r.landau@nasa.gov
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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By NASA
4 min read
NASA’s Swift Studies Gas-Churning Monster Black Holes
A pair of monster black holes swirl in a cloud of gas in this artist’s concept of AT 2021hdr, a recurring outburst studied by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Zwicky Transient Facility at Palomar Observatory in California. NASA/Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State University) Scientists using observations from NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have discovered, for the first time, the signal from a pair of monster black holes disrupting a cloud of gas in the center of a galaxy.
“It’s a very weird event, called AT 2021hdr, that keeps recurring every few months,” said Lorena Hernández-García, an astrophysicist at the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, the Millennium Nucleus on Transversal Research and Technology to Explore Supermassive Black Holes, and University of Valparaíso in Chile. “We think that a gas cloud engulfed the black holes. As they orbit each other, the black holes interact with the cloud, perturbing and consuming its gas. This produces an oscillating pattern in the light from the system.”
A paper about AT 2021hdr, led by Hernández-García, was published Nov. 13 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
The dual black holes are in the center of a galaxy called 2MASX J21240027+3409114, located 1 billion light-years away in the northern constellation Cygnus. The pair are about 16 billion miles (26 billion kilometers) apart, close enough that light only takes a day to travel between them. Together they contain 40 million times the Sun’s mass.
Scientists estimate the black holes complete an orbit every 130 days and will collide and merge in approximately 70,000 years.
AT 2021hdr was first spotted in March 2021 by the Caltech-led ZTF (Zwicky Transient Facility) at the Palomar Observatory in California. It was flagged as a potentially interesting source by ALeRCE (Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events). This multidisciplinary team combines artificial intelligence tools with human expertise to report events in the night sky to the astronomical community using the mountains of data collected by survey programs like ZTF.
“Although this flare was originally thought to be a supernova, outbursts in 2022 made us think of other explanations,” said co-author Alejandra Muñoz-Arancibia, an ALeRCE team member and astrophysicist at the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics and the Center for Mathematical Modeling at the University of Chile. “Each subsequent event has helped us refine our model of what’s going on in the system.”
Since the first flare, ZTF has detected outbursts from AT 2021hdr every 60 to 90 days.
Hernández-García and her team have been observing the source with Swift since November 2022. Swift helped them determine that the binary produces oscillations in ultraviolet and X-ray light on the same time scales as ZTF sees them in the visible range.
The researchers conducted a Goldilocks-type elimination of different models to explain what they saw in the data.
Initially, they thought the signal could be the byproduct of normal activity in the galactic center. Then they considered whether a tidal disruption event — the destruction of a star that wandered too close to one of the black holes — could be the cause.
Finally, they settled on another possibility, the tidal disruption of a gas cloud, one that was bigger than the binary itself. When the cloud encountered the black holes, gravity ripped it apart, forming filaments around the pair, and friction started to heat it. The gas got particularly dense and hot close to the black holes. As the binary orbits, the complex interplay of forces ejects some of the gas from the system on each rotation. These interactions produce the fluctuating light Swift and ZTF observe.
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Watch as a gas cloud encounters two supermassive black holes in this simulation. The complex interplay of gravitational and frictional forces causes the cloud to condense and heat. Some of the gas is ejected from the system with each orbit of the black holes. F. Goicovic et al. 2016 Hernández-García and her team plan to continue observations of AT 2021hdr to better understand the system and improve their models. They’re also interested in studying its home galaxy, which is currently merging with another one nearby — an event first reported in their paper.
“As Swift approaches its 20th anniversary, it’s incredible to see all the new science it’s still helping the community accomplish,” said S. Bradley Cenko, Swift’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “There’s still so much it has left to teach us about our ever-changing cosmos.”
NASA’s missions are part of a growing, worldwide network watching for changes in the sky to solve mysteries of how the universe works.
Goddard manages the Swift mission in collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Northrop Grumman Space Systems in Dulles, Virginia. Other partners include the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory in Italy, and the Italian Space Agency.
Download high-resolution images and videos.
By Jeanette Kazmierczak
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
301-286-1940
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Nov 13, 2024 Editor Jeanette Kazmierczak Related Terms
Astrophysics Black Holes Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Research Goddard Space Flight Center Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Science & Research Supermassive Black Holes The Universe View the full article
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