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“The result is really exciting,” says Edward Cackett, an astronomer at Wayne State University who was not involved in the research. “Although we’ve seen the signature of X-ray echoes before, so far it hasn’t been possible to distinguish the echo that comes from behind the black hole and bends in our line of sight. time interval “.
The release of energy from black holes, sometimes as an x-ray, is an extreme process. Since supermassive black holes release so much energy, they are essentially powers that allow galaxies to grow around them. “If you want to understand how galaxies are created, you really need to understand these tremendous amounts of energy and power, outside of the black hole that is able to release these amazing light sources,” says Dan Wilkin. Astrophysicist and lead author of research at Stanford University.
The research is based on a supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy called I Zwicky 1 (short for I Zw 1), about 100 million light-years from Earth. In supermassive black holes like I Zw 1, large amounts of gas fall in half (the horizon of the event, which is essentially the point of no return) and tend to flatten on a disk. Above the black hole, the intersection of the supercharged particles and the activity of the magnetic field achieves the production of high-energy radiographs.
Some of these X-rays are shining straight at us, and we can observe them normally, using telescopes. But some of them shine towards the flat disk of gas and will reflect. I Zw 1 is slowing the rotation of the black hole at a higher rate than that observed in most supermassive black holes, which causes the surrounding gas and dust to fall more easily and feed the black hole in multiple directions. This, in turn, results in higher X-ray emissions, which is why Wilkins and his team were particularly interested.
While Wilkins and his team were watching this black hole, they noticed that the crown appeared “flashing”. These glows, caused by X-ray pulses reflecting a huge gas disk, came from behind the shadow of a black hole, a place usually hidden from view. But as the black hole distorts the surrounding space, X-ray reflections are also bent around it, which means we can detect them.
The signals were found through two different telescopes based on space optimized for the detection of x-rays in space: NuSTAR led by NASA and XMM-Newton run by the European Space Agency.
The biggest implication of the new findings is that they confirm what Albert Einstein predicted in 1963, according to his theory of general relativity — like supermassive black holes that light should bend around large objects.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen the direct signature of the way light turns into our line of sight behind a black hole, because the way a black hole turns space around it, ”says Wilkins.
“While this observation does not change the overall picture of black hole growth, it is a nice assertion that general relativity in these systems is at stake,” says MIT astrophysicist Erin Kara, who was not involved in the research.
Despite the name, the supermassive black holes are so far away that they look like a single point of light, even with cutting-edge tools. It will not be possible to imagine all of them as scientists used them to capture the Event Horizon Telescope the shadow of a supermassive blahck hole M87 galaxy.
So even though it’s early, Wilkins and his team are hopeful that further detection and analysis of these radiographic echoes behind the bend will help us create partial or even complete images of distant supermassive black holes. On the other hand, this will help them unravel the great mysteries of how supermassive black holes grow, maintain entire galaxies, and create environments that push the laws of physics to the limit.
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