NASAexplorer: Suzaku – The Intergalactic Prospector.
Recently astronomers used the Suzaku orbiting X-ray observatory, operated jointly by NASA and the Japanese space agency, to discover the largest known reservoir of rare metals in the universe. Suzaku detected the elements chromium and manganese while observing the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster.
The metallic atoms are part of the hot gas, or “intergalactic medium,” that lies between galaxies. Exploding stars, or supernovas, forge the heavy elements. The supernovas also create vast outflows, called superwinds. These galactic gusts transport heavy elements into the intergalactic void.
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Suzaku Spies Treasure Trove of Intergalactic Metal
Every cook knows the ingredients for making bread: flour, water, yeast, and time. But what chemical elements are in the recipe of our universe?
Most of the ingredients are hydrogen and helium. These cosmic lightweights fill the first two spots on the famous periodic table of the elements.
Less abundant but more familiar to us are the heavier elements, meaning everything listed on the periodic table after hydrogen and helium. These building blocks, such as iron and other metals, can be found in many of the objects in our daily lives, from teddy bears to teapots.
Recently astronomers used the Suzaku orbiting X-ray observatory, operated jointly by NASA and the Japanese space agency, to discover the largest known reservoir of rare metals in the universe.
Suzaku detected the elements chromium and manganese while observing the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster. The metallic atoms are part of the hot gas, or “intergalactic medium,” that lies between galaxies.
“This is the first detection of chromium and manganese from a cluster,” says Takayuki Tamura, an astrophysicist at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency who led the Perseus study. “Previously, these metals were detected only from stars in the Milky Way or from other galaxies. This is the first detection in intergalactic space.”
The cluster gas is extremely hot, so it emits X-ray energy. Suzaku’s instruments split the X-ray energy into its component wavelengths, or spectrum. The spectrum is a chemical fingerprint of the types and amounts of different elements in the gas.
The portion of the cluster within Suzaku’s field of view is some 1.4 million light-years across, or roughly one-fifth of the cluster’s total width. It contains a staggering amount of metal atoms. The chromium is 30 million times the sun’s mass, or 10 trillion times Earth’s mass. The manganese reservoir weighs in at about 8 million solar masses.
Exploding stars, or supernovas, forge the heavy elements. The supernovas also create vast outflows, called superwinds. These galactic gusts transport heavy elements into the intergalactic void.
Harvesting the riches of the Perseus Cluster is not possible. But researchers will mine the Suzaku X-ray data for scientific insights.
“By measuring metal abundances, we can understand the chemical history of stars in galaxies, such as the numbers and types of stars that formed and exploded in the past,” Tamura says.
The Suzaku study data show it took some 3 billion supernovas to produce the measured amounts of chromium and manganese. And over periods up to billions of years, superwinds carried the metals out of the cluster galaxies and deposited them in intergalactic space.
A complete history of the universe should include an understanding of how, when, and where the heavy elements formed — the chemical elements essential to life itself. The Suzaku study contributes to a larger ongoing effort to take a chemical census of the cosmos. “It’s a part of learning the entire history of chemical element formation in the universe,” notes Koji Mukai, who heads the Suzaku Guest Observer program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
With more than 10,000 galaxy clusters known, astronomers have just barely begun their work. “The current Suzaku result cannot answer these big questions immediately,” Tamura says, “but it is one of the first steps to understand the chemical history of the universe.”
The study appeared in the November 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
• http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/astro-e2/news/intergalactic_metal.html
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I would like to …
I would like to hear more about how stars make metals.
@Saktoth
Ah, yeah, …
@Saktoth
Ah, yeah, I’m also aboard that train…
Going to be some fierce competition between “biological” upgrades and “electronic” upgrades. Or maybe they will just accompany each other.
Oh and the “pure breed” ethics of coz… the future “book thumpers”.
@Paxmax
The ‘We’ i …
@Paxmax
The ‘We’ i am talking about are intelligent, sentient life forms. Not simply humans. I am a transhumanist, and thus believe that it is our destiny to replace ourselves with something better, more complex, more intelligent- perhaps machine, perhaps biological. However, even that requires humans.
Saktoth said: ” …
Saktoth said: “impressing, importance, selfishness, laughableness, these are all qualities that are only possible with sentient”
Do not forget that apes, monkeys both have social structures and share alot of human traits such as: selfishness, anger, compassion, betrayal, grudges, cooperation, ostracism, loyalty et.c.
Saktoth said: “we are the only ones who can decide what is important”
Not necessarily… but without evidence I’ll have to concede the point, but only so far it concern us
@Paxmax
You …
@Paxmax
You misunderstand. Humour, impressing, importance, selfishness, laughableness, these are all qualities that are only possible with sentient, thinking life in the universe capable of beholding and making judgements about it.
For better or worse, these concepts do not exist in a universe without us in them: Indeed, no concepts exist, merely the mechanistic universe ticking blindly away. That is why we are important: we are the only ones who can decide what is important.
There are new music …
There are new music videos? I didn’t think anyone showed music videos anymore.
First the Kaguya …
First the Kaguya lunar probe and now Suzaku! Gotta love Japanese spacecraft.
Before i saw the …
Before i saw the channel this video was from, i thought it was a new music video…
Really interesting video.
HAHAHAHAHA, …
HAHAHAHAHA, fantastic comment!
if i am not wrong …
if i am not wrong metal is produced also from our sun i mean many wears ago when the earth’s surface was not formed cause the products of the chemical reactions in sun’s surface form heavier elements that’s why we find metals underground anyway very intresting video
Interesting video
…
Interesting video
If the laws of physics are the same at all places and at all times why is there so much interesting structure in the Universe?
In my video The Paradox of Schrodingers Cat an artist view Time has symmetry and geometry could this explain why we see such beauty.
lol
lol
Awsome!
Awsome!
intergalactic metal …
intergalactic metal \m/
Not an easy topic …
Not an easy topic really. Imo The future is in the here and now. I am happy living in this time period, atleast in the true science arena.
Saktoth said: ” …
Saktoth said: “there is nothing more important than us”
Haha. sorry… I had to laugh! =o)
I find it quite humorous that many people find us as a specie “important”… we can’t even impress chimps.
We are ONLY important to ourselves, our selfish gene says so.
Take one step back and look at us and we are laughable…
But still I enjoy a walk in the forest like many others… I do not have a bleak outlook on life, just in the bigger picture we are next to nothing… yet.
@TheBobLives
We may …
@TheBobLives
We may be the only intelligent life in the galaxy, perhaps the universe. We are the most complex arrangement of matter known, capable of understanding the universe itself.
You use words like ‘worthless’, ‘matter’, and ‘noticed’. We are the only ones who can set worth, or matter, or notice anything. Life is the only thing in the universe capable of such judgements. If we die, we will not be missed: there will be noone to miss us. Which is why there is nothing more important than us.
I suppose what I …
I suppose what I suggested was effectively a Zeno’s paradox, which is fun but not practical.
I get what you mean. Plus, I think it’s more complicated than ‘distances’ getting smaller or bigger to infinity because of other dimensions, the way atoms behave and so on.
yeah, I sometimes …
yeah, I sometimes think the same
You may say how …
You may say how lucky we are to live in this part of time, But i am bit jealous of what our Kids, Kids, Kids will be able to discover and witness. I sort of wish i was borne several generations from now. But then again, If i was i may be saying the same thing : P
Suzaku= Phoenix… …
Suzaku= Phoenix…kinda (Japanese)…just a fun fact.
Just call up The …
Just call up The Professor to place an order and Fry, Lila and Bender can go get it.
It would …
It would effectivively be like that. However it is finite and does have a shape, apparently.
Space factories? …
Space factories? Sign me up, I’ll go work there.
@TheBobLives watch? …
@TheBobLives watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk