The inexorable spiral of matter down the gullet of a giant black hole has been captured in unprecedented detail by the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
NGC 1097, a spiral galaxy about 45 million light years from Earth, glows relatively brightly at its centre. That suggests a black hole is devouring surrounding stars and gas there, but the light's glare has overwhelmed any detailed images of the process.
Now, astronomers have used one of the VLT's four 8-metre telescopes to take near-infrared images of matter whirling towards the galaxy's heart.
They made the observation by masking the bright light around the black hole and then imaging the dim spiral arms using adaptive optics, a software technique that corrects for the blurring effect of the Earth's atmosphere. Scroll down for additional images.
"This is possibly the first time that a detailed view of the channelling process of matter, from the main part of the galaxy down to the very end in the nucleus, is released," says Almudena Prieto, at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, and lead author of the study.
i had to put my bestest friend in the entire multiverse to rest today...thankfully my best friend was there to catch my fall.
NGC 1097, a spiral galaxy about 45 million light years from Earth, glows relatively brightly at its centre. That suggests a black hole is devouring surrounding stars and gas there, but the light's glare has overwhelmed any detailed images of the process.
Now, astronomers have used one of the VLT's four 8-metre telescopes to take near-infrared images of matter whirling towards the galaxy's heart.
They made the observation by masking the bright light around the black hole and then imaging the dim spiral arms using adaptive optics, a software technique that corrects for the blurring effect of the Earth's atmosphere. Scroll down for additional images.
"This is possibly the first time that a detailed view of the channelling process of matter, from the main part of the galaxy down to the very end in the nucleus, is released," says Almudena Prieto, at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, and lead author of the study.
i had to put my bestest friend in the entire multiverse to rest today...thankfully my best friend was there to catch my fall.
always.