The brightest X-ray source in the sky?

--------- #1381 - V381 - Our Mistaken Quasar.

- Attachments : picture

- V381 is the brightest, most distant, fastest star found to date. It was first discovered in 1967 using radio telescopes. It was then called a Quasi-Stellar Radio Object, or QUASAR for short.

- Since then astronomers have identified over 200,000 Quasars, but, all are far distant, billions of lightyears away. With this one exception Quasars appeared to only exist in the early Universe. The Universe is not creating Quasars any more?

- Quasars are intense energies emitted by super massive Blackholes at the core of galaxies. Nothing escapes a Blackhole. However, in falling material from stars and nebulae become captured and hurled to extreme accelerations. The friction of gases colliding creates powerful X-rays and Gamma Rays. This intense radiation escapes out the magnetic and rotational poles of the accretion disk of rotating material. The jets of energy shoot out into space and the intergalactic medium.

- Mature galaxies that exist today have quiet Blackholes that have already devoured all the material in their gravitational vicinity.

- XTE J1550-564 is an exception. It is 17,000 lightyears away in the Constellation Norma the Carpenter’s Square. It became know as V381 Nor. And, it turned out it is not a galaxy but a binary system of one massive star orbiting a Blackhole, both orbiting a common center of gravity. The two stars are separated by only 5,000,000 miles. For comparison the planet Mercury is 25,000,000 miles from the Sun at its closest orbit.

- The star is so close to the Blackhole that it solar wind constantly feeds the accretion disk orbiting the Blackhole. The in falling material creates friction and intense heat which in turn creates X-ray radiation. The Jets from the Accretion disk just happen to pointed directly at us. We are looking down the barrel of a Blackhole.

- V381 acts like a Quasar except the Blackhole is not one of those super massive ones in the core of a young galaxy. This Blackhole is only 10.6 Solar mass. It is not a Quasar but the process is quite the same. In 1998 V381 became 150% brighter and became the most intense X-ray source in the entire sky. Here is what happened:

- The massive star that collapsed into the Blackhole sped up its rotation as it shrank. The spinning created an accretion disk of material. A dynamo was created with a powerful magnetic field. The star became a colossal rotating magnet.

- The magnetic field captured charged particles that became channeled along the magnetic poles. The in falling particles reached half the speed of light. When the particles reached the poles they shot out in opposing beams of energy.

- The powerful jets plowed into the interstellar gas. This slowed down the jets causing them to release their energy at lower wavelengths. This is brightness radiation that the astronomers saw.

- In April , 2000 it was the brightest hard X-ray source in the sky. Today it has faded to 1/10^th the X-ray illumination of the Crab Nebula which is now the brightest X-ray source.

--------------------------------------------
(1) 2 learn more #1259 Distant Quasars and the early Universe.
(2) #944 Quasars
(3) # 4 Quasars, Blackholes with personalities
---------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com/ Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
or, use: “Jim Detrick” www.facebook.com, or , www.twitter.com.
707-536-3272, Sunday, January 22, 2012