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Showing posts with the label cycle

The Clearest Understanding of the Life Cycle of Supermassive Black Holes

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The doughnut-shaped rings surrounding many supermassive black holes tell researchers how fast extraterrestrial objects are feeding and could change how black holes are viewed from Earth. Credits: ESA/NASA, AVO project and Paolo Padovani The researchers used X-ray telescopes and new data analysis techniques to describe extraterrestrial objects. Black holes with different light signatures that were once thought to be the same object viewed from different angles are actually in different stages of their life cycle, according to a study led by Dartmouth scientists. New research on black holes known as “active galactic nuclei,” or AGNs, says that it definitively demonstrates the need to revise the widely used “AGN unified model” that characterizes supermassive black holes because they all share the same properties. This study provides an answer to a troubling space mystery and should allow researchers to create more precise models of the evolution of the universe and...

Earth's primordial water cycle was key to making continents, study shows

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Credit: Curtin University A new study from Curtin University has found that water was transported much deeper in the early Earth than previously thought, explaining how the continents originally formed. Studies published in Earth and Planetary Science Letter answers a long-standing question about Earth’s early water cycle. Principal investigator Dr. Michael Hartnady, of the Curtin School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, says how water is stored and transported through the Earth’s crust affects everything from where volcanoes and mineral deposits form to where earthquakes occur. “Although we understand the modern deep water cycle, we know very little about how it worked when Earth was a very young planet,” said Dr. Hartnady. “Some geological evidence suggests that water was transported to great depths on Earth all the way back to 3.5 billion years ago, although it is not well understood how exactly it got th...