NEWSNOTES Galaxy Bars: Fueling Active Nuclei?

1530s bar appears to stream directly to-

The tremendous energy that emerges
from the cores of active galaxies can be
sustained only if there is a continuous
supply of material to fuel these powerful
engines. Some researchers have proposed
that the bars in some spiral galaxies may
provide the means for this fuel, in the
form of hydrogen
gas, to reach their
active nuclei.
Luis C. Ho
(Harvard Uni-
versity) and his
colleagues investi-
gated this possibili-
ty by comparing the
number of active nuclei
and their intensities in
barred and in unbarred galaxies.
Their sample of more than 200 spirals
suggests that having a bar has no notice-
able correlation with a galaxy having an
active nucleus. Nor do bars seem to in-
fluence the strength of an active galaxys
nuclear emissions. The astronomers
speculate that gas channeled by a bar is
somehow blocked from actually entering
the galaxys core. This research is sched-
uled to appear in the October 1st issue
of the Astrophysical Journal.
This result doesnt mean that bars are
incapable of channeling gas toward gal-
axy nuclei. A team of astronomers from
the University of Maryland led by Mi-
chael W. Regan has found that
the bar of at least one galaxy
is doing just that. From
red-light images of
NGC 1530 in
Camelopardalis,
the researchers de-
termined the ve-
locities of ionized
gas in the region of
this galaxys bar. They
then compared these val-
ues to gas-flow models for barred spi-
rals. Gas that enters dust lanes in NGC
The bars in spiral galaxies like M109 in Ursa
Major may help channel the flow of gas to-
ward galaxy nuclei. Courtesy Kim Zussman.
ward a ring that surrounds the galaxys
nucleus at a radius of about 6,500 light-
years. From there most of the material
sprays out into the surrounding medi-
um, though about 20 percent enters the
ring itself. In Astrophysical Journal Letters
for June 20th, Regan and his colleagues
point out that the inflow rate into the
ring is equivalent to only about one
solar mass per year. Although this
amount would be enough to fuel a typi-
cal active galactic nucleus, the re-
searchers believe that most of the mater-
ial gets trapped in the ring and does not
actually enter the nucleus.
Martin Schwarzschild,
191297
Princeton Universitys Martin Schwarz-
schild died on April 10th at the age of
84. Schwarzschild was a pioneering stu-
dent of stellar structure and evolution
whose seminal 1958 textbook, Structure
and Evolution of the Stars, has guided
several generations of astrophysicists.

Tragedy Strikes Russian Observatory

Fire swept through the library of Pulkovo Observatory,
Russias most famous astronomical institution, on the morning
of February 5th. Both the fire and the water used to fight it de-
stroyed or damaged nearly 5,000 books 2,000 of them collect-
ed by observatory founder Wilhelm Struve prior to the facilitys
founding in 1839. According to Robert A. McCutcheon (Com-
puter Sciences Corporation), the observatorys museum and pic-
ture gallery also suffered significant damage. Arson is suspected.
Pulkovo Observatory was renowned in the 19th century for
its fundamental astronomical and astrometric work. Wracked
by Stalins Great Purges in the 1930s and totally destroyed dur-
Russias Pulkovo Observatory, seen here as it appeared in 1974, was the scene of a devastating
re
fi last February. Courtesy Donald F. Trombino.
ing the German siege of Leningrad during World War II,
Pulkovo rose from the ashes to be reopened in 1954. A new
crisis came in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union,
which curtailed government funding for astronomy. The fi-
nancial crisis at Pulkovo has been so severe that the observato-
ry went without electricity for two months just before the fire.
According to observatory director Viktor Abalakin, Pulkovos
prime location near the St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) air-
port has made it a target for the Russian Mafia, which would
like to see the observatorys extensive grounds made available
for hotel construction. Abalakin says there have been three prior
attempts to set fire to the library, and he
suspects that the Mafia has been respon-
sible for each.
Many of the water-damaged books
from the Pulkovo library have been trans-
ferred to the Library of the Academy of
Sciences in St. Petersburg, which estab-
lished a center for restoring damaged
books after its own severe fire in 1988. A
full compilation is not yet available, but
the worst is feared: the February 5th fire
began in the library basement, where the
rarest portion of the collection was
stored. The only positive note is that, at
the start of World War II, several of the
librarys rarest holdings were removed to
the relative safety of the Academy of Sci-
ences library, where they remain.

24 September 1997 Sky & Telescope 1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.