Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Heavens are Ablaze With Blazars

The Heavens are Ablaze With Blazars:

This image taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) shows a blazar -- a voracious supermassive black hole inside a galaxy with a jet that happens to be pointed right toward Earth. These objects are rare and hard to find, but astronomers have discovered that they can use the WISE all-sky infrared images to uncover new ones. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kavli
From a JPL press release:

Astronomers are actively hunting a class of supermassive black holes throughout the universe called blazars thanks to data collected by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The mission has revealed more than 200 blazars and has the potential to find thousands more.


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