Tag Archives: galactic nuclei

Searching for Cosmic Accelerators via IceCube

By Guest PostDecember 22, 2013Scienceastrophysical neutrinos, cosmic accelerators, extraterrestrial neutrinos, galactic nuclei, high energy neutrinos, icecube detector

Berkeley Lab Researchers Part of an International Hunt

In our universe there are particle accelerators 40 million times more powerful than the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Scientists don’t know what these cosmic accelerators are or where they are located, but new results being reported from “IceCube,” the neutrino observatory buried at the South Pole, may show the way. These new results should also erase any doubts as to IceCube’s ability to deliver on its promise. (more…)

Pair of Black Holes ‘Weigh In’ At 10 Billion Suns, The Most Massive Yet

By Guest PostDecember 5, 2011Science10 billion suns, astronomers, black holes, bright galaxies, chung pei ma, coma berenices, coma cluster, constellation, constellation leo, dark halo, elliptical galaxy ngc 3842, elliptical galaxy ngc 4889, fast moving stars, galactic nuclei, gemini and keck telescopes, george and cynthia mitchell spectrograph, gravitational fields, hawaii, james graham, jeremy murphy, karl gebhardt, masses, massive black holes, mcdonald observatory, nicholas mcconnell, quasars, solar masses, solar system, supercomputer, supermassive black holes, the university of texas at austin, university of california

AUSTIN, Texas — A team of astronomers including Karl Gebhardt and graduate student Jeremy Murphy of The University of Texas at Austin have discovered the most massive black holes to date — two monsters weighing as much as 10 billion suns and threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.

The research is published in the Dec. 8 issue of the journal Nature in a paper headlined by graduate student Nicholas McConnell and professor Chung-Pei Ma of the University of California, Berkeley. (more…)