We’ve been working hard at making sense of the X-ray data from Suzaku and it turns out we (that is, Shanil) will have to do a very, very careful analysis of the data beyond what is described in the handbook to be sure we understand what the data mean. In the meantime, I’ve started the [...]
I’m working on the Suzaku data that we’ve obtained on IC2497, the galaxy next to Hanny’s Voorwerp. X-rays, especially the really energetic ones that Suzaku is able to detect are probably the best way to probe whether the black hole in a galaxy is actively feeding or not. Shanil Virani and I are currently working [...]
Regular blog readers will know that we were all hugely pleased to find out that our proposal to observe Hanny’s Voorwerp with Hubble was approved. This was especially welcome because we expected a very high oversubscription rate for next year – new and repaired instruments meant that there was pent-up demand for some kinds of observations which have [...]
A couple weeks ago, I talked about the Voorwerp (”object”), the strange blue object that Hanny posted to the Galaxy Zoo forum. She asked if anyone knew what it was, and we sure didn’t. Part of the problem was that we didn’t have a spectrum for it, so it could have been literally anywhere from [...]