A black hole nine times bigger than the sun shoots in space and time

By Jessie Wade

Astronomers have noticed a black hole, known as the V404 Cygni, 8,000 light-years away, which was sneaking into space, according to a new study published by Nature and reported by CNN.

The black hole is nine times larger than the sun and its jets of plasma clouds – which are normal for coming out of the poles of the black holes – project in different directions at completely different speeds, which is rare.

"It's one of the most extraordinary black hole systems I have ever encountered," said James Miller-Jones, senior author of the study and associate professor at the International Center. Curtin University Radioastronomy Research Project, in a news release.

"Like many black holes, it feeds on a nearby star, moves the gas away from the star and forms a disc of matter that surrounds the black hole and that winds up under it. effect of gravity, "he continued. "What's different in V404 Cygni is that we think that the material disk and the black hole are misaligned, which seems to make the inner part of the disk oscillate like a top and throw jets in different directions as the orientation changes. "

The gravitational attraction of the black hole is so intense that, globally, its space and time draw straight on itself, which is known as frame erasure.

"This is the only mechanism we can think of that can explain the rapid precession seen in the Cygni V404," Miller-Jones said. "You can think of this as a flicker of a spinning top that is slowing down, but in this case the flicker is caused by Einstein's theory of general relativity."

Avengers: Endgame, Chris Evans, published the news of the study on the black hole on Twitter, where he shared his amazement for the immensity of the universe.

A recent discovery last December shed new light on our knowledge of black holes when an astronomer saw gusts of wind blow from a supermassive black hole 228,000 light-years away from its surrounding galaxy.

To learn more about space, check out the gamma ray constellations that NASA has named after Marvel's Avengers, Doctor Who's TARDIS, and more.

A tip to give us? Do you want to discuss a possible story? Thank you to send an email to [email protected].

Jessie Wade is a writer at IGN and is fascinated by the universe. Chat with her on Twitter about astronomy @ jessieannwade.