NASA’s WISE Mission Captures Black Hole’s Wildly Flaring Jet

Astronomers using NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.

Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes. Much has been learned about the material feeding black holes, called accretion disks, and the jets themselves, through studies using X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. But key measurements of the brightest part of the jets, located at their bases, have been difficult despite decades of work. WISE is offering a new window into this missing link through its infrared observations.

READ MORE: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110920.html

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‘Clumpy’ universe may force rethinking of cosmology

The universe appears to be clumpier than astronomers expected, according to the largest galaxy survey to date. The extra clumps could call for a redesign of the standard model of cosmology, and maybe a new understanding of how gravity works.

“Maybe on very large scales, Einstein’s general relativity is slightly wrong,” said cosmologist Shaun Thomas of University College London, lead author of a new paper in Physical Review Letters. “This potentially could be one of the first signs that something peculiar is going on.”

When viewed close up, the matter in the universe bunches up into stars, galaxies and galaxy clusters. But as you zoom out, cosmologists expect the universe to look more and more smooth, sort of the way details in an earthly landscape blend together when viewed from an airplane.