Researchers see bright “echo” around black hole

For the first time, scientists have seen the light behind a black hole.

Black holes are regions of space-time where the pull of gravity is so powerful that not even light can escape its grip. However, although light cannot escape from a black hole, its extreme gravity distorts the space around it, allowing the light to “echo”, bending to the back of the hole. ‘object. Thanks to this strange phenomenon, astronomers have, for the first time, observed the light behind a black hole.

In a new study, researchers, led by Stanford University astrophysicist Dan Wilkins in California, used the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton space telescopes and NASA’s NuSTAR to observe the light behind a black hole 10 million times more massive than our sun and is located 800 million light years away in the spiral galaxy I Zwicky 1, according to an ESA statement.

The “echo” of light was first predicted by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity, published in 1916.

This study began with the researchers’ desire to broaden our understanding of black hole crowns, which are the source of the x-ray light that often radiates near these objects. . Bright X-ray flares are emitted by gas that falls into black holes from their accretion disks, the dust and gas disks that surround and “fuel” these objects.

The team spotted an X-ray flare in I Zwicky 1 that was so bright that some of the light reflected off the gas falling back into the black hole. When this reflected light was bent behind the black hole by the object’s extreme gravity, the team was able to spot it using space telescopes from ESA and NASA.

The team did not just observe this light, it is the first time that it has been observed directly in this way; they also took note of how the x-ray light changed color as it bent and moved around the back of the black hole. By observing the travel of light behind the black hole, the researchers hope to gain a better understanding of what is really going on near these gravitational vortices.

As a result of this groundbreaking study, the team aims to create a 3D map of the black hole’s surroundings, the statement said. They also hope to better understand the crowns of black holes and explore how the crown of a black hole is able to produce these bright x-ray flares.

This work was described in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Jason abbruzzese contributed.