Science

Using Spitzer scientist have unveiled the most detailed picture of the Milky Way Galaxy ever taken. The image is a 360 degree view from planet earth and is on display at the AAS meeting in St. Louis. The image is 180 feet long. Head on over to Universe Today for the amazing pics.

Alicia Soderberg, a Princeton Astronomer, had logged some time on Nasa's Swift satellite to get some images of a previous Supernova, when by coincidence another Supernova exploded when she checked out the images. A Supernova can emit as much as energy during its short interval as the sun can over its entire lifespan. The reason this is such a big deal is that most Supernova we usually don't see a Supernova until it is hours or days old, but this time she caught the actual X-Ray blast from the explosion, which last only 5 minutes.

Scientist have estimated the mass of the black hole at the heart of quasar OJ287 to be 18 billion suns. By observing its neighboring black hole, with a mere mass of 100 millions suns, they were able to calculate the mass of the larger of the holes. Check out the rest of the story here.