Category Archives: Astronomy outreach

Astronomy outreach, black holes, molecular clouds, starbirth

Do Black Holes Prevent Starbirth?

Leave a comment

Not Always

If you know anything about black holes (and you probably have at least heard that these bad boys suck up pretty much anything that wanders past their event horizons), then it might surprise you to learn that young stars can form near black holes. Now, this seems counter-intuitive, since, if the black hole is gobbling all the stuff up (including the stuff that makes stars), there wouldn’t be any (or at least enough) left to make stars.

Not so fast, says a team of astronomers and astrophysicists at the University of St. Andrews and University of Edinburgh in Scotland, U.K. It turns out that, through a set of computer simulations (left) of giant clouds of gas being sucked into black holes, the scientists have solved the mystery of how stars could be formed in the blustery, dangerous, and not completely hospitable environment near a black hole

The discovery of hundreds of high-mass young stars orbiting the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way was probably one of the most exciting in recent times. But, it begged the question of how they could have formed near the hungry maw of the black hole. And survived!

The series of images at  left show the evolution of a 10,000 solar-mass molecular cloud falling toward a supermassive black hole. Although the cloud is disrupted by the black hole, some of the material is captured to form an eccentric disc that quickly forms numerous stars. The stars that form retain the eccentricity of the captured gas and those that form very close to be the black hole tend to be very massive. These results match the two primary properties of the young stars that have formed in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. They have high mass and they follow eccentric orbits around the supermassive black hole. Not only does this simulation set help us understand the black hole at OUR galaxy’s heart (and the formation of stars nearby), but they should be quite valuable when astronomers look to the hearts of other galaxies and find newborn stars orbiting close to the hungry maws of supermassive black holes.

amateur astronomy, astronomy education, astronomy groups and organizations, Astronomy outreach

Tell The World About Astronomy

Leave a comment

Or, Maybe Just Your Friends, Family and Maybe the Neighbors

Next year is the International Year of Astronomy, formally referred to often enough as IYA 2009. It’s a formally declared event (by the United Nations, no less) and many astronomy-oriented organizations around the world are touting IYA’s activities. If you happen to belong to an astronomy club or work at a planetarium or are a working astronomer, you’ve probably heard about IYA and have been encouraged by others to participate.

If you’re an astronomy “civilian” you may or may not hear about it, but if you’re interested in participating, the link above will take you to a web site full of information about getting involved.

One of the groups that’s working to get the word out about IYA and astronomy is the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. This organization has been around for more than a hundred years and is focused on teaching everybody about astronomy in whatever way works best. I’m a member and I have always encouraged teachers, amateur and professional (and armchair) astronomers to join, too.  You don’t have to live anywhere near the Pacific, you just have to like (or be interested in liking) astronomy.  If you’re a teacher, they have priceless resources about how to bring the wonder of the stars to your students.  If you’re an astronomy professional, the organization has a professional-track set of publications that you probably already know about (or if you don’t, you will).

So, go on over to their site and check it out — there’s a lot of useful information about how you can spread the word about astronomy to your intimate circle of friends and family. And, you’ll also see what they’ve got planned for IYA 2009.

Go on — give it a try!