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Mass of a black hole

17.05.2016

Supermassive black holes exist at the center of many galaxies, some of which have billions of solar masses. When studying the evolution of galaxies, astrophysicists pay special attention to the ratio of the mass of a galaxy to the mass of a black hole.

To determine the mass of a supermassive black hole, it is necessary to measure the strength of its gravitational influence on the surrounding stars and clouds of gas and dust. To do this, they study their motion in the immediate vicinity of the black hole, since at a considerable distance from it, other stars and dark matter make a large contribution to gravity. After all, despite its gigantic mass, on the scale of a galaxy, a black hole is just a grain of sand in the center, its share in the total mass of the galaxy does not exceed one percent.

In our galaxy, powerful ground-based telescopes using adaptive optics are able to image individual stars near its center and accurately track their paths over time. Other galaxies are too far away to discern the movement of individual stars. Therefore, accurately measuring the masses of black holes is a difficult task even for the most powerful telescopes on Earth or in space.

Using the ALMA radio telescope, located in Chile's Atacama desert at an altitude of several kilometers, astronomers were able to accurately study the movement of a disk of cold interstellar gas enclosing the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy NGC 1332. ALMA consists of 66 separate radio telescopes combined into a single radio interferometer. Today it is the largest ground-based radio telescope. It made it possible to distinguish details of the structure of the disk of the order of 16 light-years and measure the rotation of the disk within the "sphere of influence" of the black hole - an area with a radius of about 80 light-years, where its gravity prevails.

The gas velocity was measured by the Doppler effect in the emission spectrum of carbon monoxide (CO). The investigated gaseous disk is visible from the side, so one half of it moves away from us and the radiation wavelength increases because of this - it "turns red", the other, on the contrary, approaches, and the radiation wavelength decreases "turns blue". By the degree of frequency change, you can calculate the speed of movement. In a similar way, the speed of the car is determined using the radar. The measured speeds in some areas of the disk exceeded 500 kilometers per second.

Comparing the data with simulation results, astronomers have calculated that the black hole at the center of NGC 1332 has a mass 660 million times that of our Sun (plus or minus ten percent). This is about 150 times the mass of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. This is one of the most accurate measurements of a black hole's mass to date.

Previous studies of NGC 1332 by ground and space telescopes have yielded very different estimates for the black hole's mass, ranging from 500 million to 1,5 billion solar masses.

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Instant battery charging 31.07.2013

American automotive company Tesla Motors, which specializes in the production of electric vehicles, knows a way to reduce the charging time of an electric car battery to 5 minutes. JB Straubel, chief technical officer of Tesla Motors, told Technology Review about this. In September 2012, Tesla Motors introduced Tesla Superchargers, designed to charge the Model S and newer EVs, allowing the battery to be charged halfway in 30 minutes. By May 2013, the company had reduced this time to 20 minutes. Now Strobel claims that this time can be significantly reduced.

The new method has nothing to do with the procedure of replacing a dead battery with a new charged battery. The company introduced this method of "refueling" last month, believing that it would be easier for the owner of an electric car to change the battery than to wait until it is charged. However, the problem is not just waiting, the fact is that the batteries that Tesla Motors equips its cars with have three times the capacity compared to competitors.

In order to master the charging method in 5 minutes, it is necessary to carry out a whole range of activities. And perhaps this will be, first of all, due to the fact that Tesla Motors independently develops all the necessary technologies and equipment for recharging electric vehicles.

First, it will be necessary to increase the capacity of Tesla Motors charging stations. Now the most common high-speed charging standard is the Japanese CHAdeMO. The station with a capacity of 50-100 kW allows you to charge the battery of an electric car by 80% in 15-30 minutes. In October 2012, another standard was developed - the organization SAE International became its author. It implies the use of a power of 100 kW.

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Accelerated charging can lead to overheating of the battery, so it is necessary to develop a system for monitoring the temperature and voltage of the battery, which can protect it from overheating by automatically adjusting the charging parameters. "In order to charge a battery this quickly, all components need to work in perfect harmony," commented Strobel.

Finally, the high power of charging stations will force the company to equip them with additional energy sources - solar panels and wind generators.

Tesla Motors plans to test the first such station - which will allow charging electric vehicle batteries in 5 minutes - in the near future in California.

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