Gamma-Ray Bubbles Could Be Supermassive Black Hole Eruption (PICTURES, VIDEO)

Scientists surveying the skies using NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope have discovered two bubble-like structures apparently emanating from the center of the Milky Way.

According to Discovery News, the gamma-ray bubbles span about half the length of the Milky Way (about 50,000 light-years) and contain the energy of 100,000 supernova.

Astrophysicist Douglas Finkbeiner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discussed the finding in a press conference Tuesday. Finkbeiner believes the "bubbles" may be "an outburst from the supermassive black hole lurking in the center of the galaxy," writes Discovery News.

"This might be the first evidence for a major outburst of the black hole at the center of the galaxy. When it's going full-blast ... it would not actually take an enormous amount of time -- maybe 10,000 or 100,000 years -- for it to produce enough energy to create these structures," Finkbeiner said.

Geekosystem presents another theory that scientists are also considering: "The bubbles also may have formed as a result of gas outflows from a burst of star formation, perhaps the one that produced many massive star clusters in the Milky Way's center several million years ago."

Princeton astrophysicist David Spergel presented and discussed the Fermi bubbles alongside Finkbeiner. "This finding will be challenging astrophysicists for years," Spergel said, according to USA Today.

Check out NASA's video (below), which explains how the Fermi bubbles may have formed; then scroll down for pictures. Official briefing materials on the discovery can be found at NASA.gov.

WATCH: [via USA Today]

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Comments

[deepfreezevideo]

04:21 AM on 11/14/2010

If this pair of bubbles are really as massive as they appear shouldn't there be a way to tap into the potential energy from them?
Inductive reactance and capacitive reactance are examples of nearby forces acting to generate power.

[LintLass]

09:50 AM on 11/14/2010

There's not necessarily a huge amount of energy density there, for one, and for another, it doesn't compare to what we get from the Sun here. The distances involved are *huge.*

[gypsysailor]

03:03 AM on 11/14/2010

Oh, I can't resist. This is going to be both catty and tacky. Look, a pair of boobs in the center of the Milky Way! This is way better than the cover of WIRED.

[emmanuel goldstein]

08:27 AM on 11/14/2010

Joke's on you; that's Orion's sack....

[aristippe]

03:06 PM on 11/13/2010

That was a nice video

[BigNewGames]

11:56 AM on 11/13/2010

First of all seeing that light and energy cannot go faster than the speed of light and the bubbles are uniform stretching from near the galactic core outward means these bubbles are continuously forming and not from one outburst million of years ago. If an outburst occurred the bubbles would not still be connected to the source. They would have stretched out a million light years away by now. Second, because they are uniform about the magnetic axis of the black hole Sgr. A., on both sides, they are emanating from it. Yet nothing can escape a black hole so we are told. Gamma rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation and so are photons. If these bubbles are continuously being formed then it is evidence which shows Einstein's theory of Relativity to be incorrect, seeing that there are no visible jets streaming from the magnetic poles to keep the discovered energy at foot, plus the black hole does not appear to be actively gobbling up matter near the event horizon. This is why physicists are so perplexed about the origin. Nothing can produce that much energy uniformly except the black hole in the center of our galaxy. There are many unanswered observations which defy theory yet many still religiously believe in Einstein's ideas. We need a new theory which explains every observation and which also predicts future observations. I believe I have the answer which fits all observations yet defies current theory and the law of thermodynamics.

[Higgs Boson]

12:44 AM on 11/14/2010

Your assertion that nothing can escape a black hole is incorrect . I believe that Stephen Hawkings proved that x-rays escape from black holes while he was still at Princeton

[SiriusMrE]

01:24 PM on 11/14/2010

Didn't he "prove" it after it was observed? I do not think that the"black hole" theory at the time predicted jets emanating from galactic centers. I have a vague, but distinct memory about it because I was and continue to be very interested in space science. The thinking was that nothing could escape a black hole, not even light. That's a bold statement, even for the casual science news consumer. The concept permeated the culture to varying degrees of depth, but I think it is safe to say that most people were aware of that basic concept.

That is what made it so surprising when it was announced that, well, it would appear that something could actually escape a "black hole," because we have seen an example. What followed was the creation, right before our eyes, of a classic epicycle, a modification in the theory in order to fit the observation. After that, jets from "black holes" became expected; but, I do not think that they were predicted before their discovery.

I guess that's my main issue with press releases like this and "Big Bang" cosmology in general: The "theory" is infinitely flexible because it deals in values like infinity (a "black hole" is, supposedly, a point with infinite mass). But when gravity is the only tool in your toolbox, I guess you have to come up with some really exotic solutions. To a man whose only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[dubbleplusgood]

09:11 AM on 11/15/2010

To escape something, occasionally one requires assistance. What if nothing on its own can escape a black hole but something combined with something else might have the power to do it? Just a random unsupported thought.

[JohnSawyer]

10:04 PM on 11/14/2010

"I believe I have the answer which fits all observations yet defies current theory and the law of thermodynamics."

Mind sharing that with us?

[coffeeparty]

03:31 PM on 11/12/2010

Answer: FERMI BUBBLE.

Question: What happens when Enrico Fermi farts in the bathtub?

[314NewsJunkie]

05:21 PM on 11/11/2010

You are making me angry! Very Angry!

[Infostream]

05:12 PM on 11/11/2010

IF these structures are "emanating" from the center, why would they be spheres? That would look like an explosion, a conical shape. For there to be the spherical structure doesn't there need to be some kind of field to form it? Where's Neil deGrasse Tyson when you need him? Since they decided most of the universe is "dark matter" I think all the accepted space-time theories are up in the air.

[SiriusMrE]

12:37 PM on 11/12/2010

You're right; they are not spherical as drawn here. Neither are they conical. Actually, what we "see" is that the shape is more of an amorphous blob, full of "bubbles" and "cells;" one blob on each side of the galactic disk. If we could "look" closer at them, I'm sure that we would see a finer structure as well.

See the first figure here (labeled "Fig. 10"), for starters: Galaxies & Stars: What Are They Really?: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/galaxies.htm

[Higgs Boson]

12:46 AM on 11/14/2010

maybe it is our galaxies electro magnetic field

[TruthDecay]

11:46 AM on 11/11/2010

Whole universe on the outside, whole universe on the inside but we're all stuck playing goofy games in the middle. Ironically, our goofy games provide an intense, meaningful (ha ha) experience which is most likely the purpose for the whole damn thing. Perception may be reality but it is equally true that reality depends upon perception. IMHO.

[SiriusMrE]

12:22 PM on 11/11/2010

I agree.

"I wouldn't have seen it if I didn't believe it!"

[Xylem44]

08:19 AM on 11/11/2010

Beatiful artist rendering.... This needs a soundtrack and Muse is all over it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBb-J0hcBQA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[rougebaisers]

07:53 AM on 11/11/2010

How much longer before we are sucked into that black hole?

[gypsysailor]

03:04 AM on 11/14/2010

You'll be gone before you know it.

[MaynardGK]

02:55 AM on 11/11/2010

Be advised, the animation is simply an Artists conception, a painting from imagination of the conjecture. The discovery itself is a conjecture, that all the inputs and processing and finally a subtraction of a (model - data) large numbers to produce a small residual. Doubtless many hours have been spent testing its validity against several things that could go wrong.
Presuming that holds, it is interesting shape addition to our galactic gamma-rays but nothing that says it has to be related to a black hole near the center. Could equally be simply a galactic magnetosphere, harboring high-energy electrons - that would be equally new and interesting, even though it doesn't sound as sexy as a black hole eruption.

[Leper]

11:19 PM on 11/10/2010

Isn't that the album cover to Iron Butterfly's Innagaddadavida?

[BeachWar]

11:42 PM on 11/10/2010

hahahaha sort of? http://www.homerock.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/iron-butterfly1.jpg

[jeffgolin]

10:25 PM on 11/10/2010

x v. t ??? Space time diagram?

[drmdj]

09:56 PM on 11/10/2010

IT has begun.

[psilocynic]

10:54 PM on 11/10/2010

It began over a million years ago.

[drmdj]

11:02 PM on 11/10/2010

Not this.

[greeneyes51654m]

09:55 PM on 11/10/2010

Impressive looking...