WFIRST Could Provide Glimpse Into Universe’s Secrets — NASA Space Telescope

Hopes are pinned for WFIRST, which will survey massive regions of the sky in near-infrared light, to better aid scientists in unraveling the mystery of dark energy and dark matter, as well as discover new planets, galaxies, and worlds outside the solar system.

Of course, the announcement posted with new photos of the NGC 4889 galaxy is quick to point out that the pictures don’t exactly capture the likeness of the supermassive black hole.

As a result of its resting state, the area surrounding the gargantuan black hole has become so calm stars have started to form from the residual gas left from its last feeding, also known as an active period.

The event horizon of this huge black hole is estimated to be 81 billion miles, approximately 15 times the orbit of Neptune around our Sun.

Recently photographed by the Hubble, NGC 4889 is home to a black hole 21 billion times the mass of the sun. In addition to exoplanets studies, WFIRST’s wide field of view-100 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope-will allow it to measure the shapes, positions, and distances of millions of galaxies so as to understand the dark matter that facilitated their creation and how dark energy has affected cosmic expansion.

“Using instruments on the Keck II Observatory and Gemini North Telescope, astronomers measured the velocity of the stars moving around NGC 4889’s center”. During the time it was active, the supermassive black hole was fueled by a process called hot accretion.

“We are proud that NASA has made us a partner in this revolutionary new mission”, said Roeland van der Marel, the WFIRST mission lead at STScI.

“That’s a common misconception”, he noted. By blowing outward in all directions, black holes play a part in regulating what’s around them.

Black holes “follow the laws of gravity”, according to NASA research, meaning that unless the black hole’s orbit is very close to our solar system, it would not likely impact Earth.

Orbiting the black hole, this spinning disc of material was accelerated by the black hole’s huge gravitational pull and heated to millions of degrees.

“If a black hole with the same mass as the sun were to replace the sun, Earth would not fall in”.

Even though the Earth is not at risk of falling into the center, the photo is important to scientists for what is not shown. It will in fact, also manage coronagraph, an instrument that maps images and categorises planets and stars.