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Virtual Unknown
It's been less than two months since scientists published the first image of a black hole, but astronomers have been studying these strange phenomena for more than a century. A modern tool: computer simulations that allow researchers to visualize black holes with otherwise impossible details.
Now, an international team of calculating astrophysicists has produced the high resolution simulations of a black hole ever created – and used them to solve a mystery that has been blocking scientists since 1975.
Mystery solved
The mystery is known as the Bardeen-Petterson effect. This suggests that the inner region of the accretion disk inclined with a rotating black hole – the ring of material rotating around the horizon of events of a black hole – should align with its equator and that astronomers have been looking for it since the proposal of this effect in 1975.
In an article published Wednesday in the newspaper Monthly Notices from the Royal Astronomical SocietyComputer astrophysicists describe how they were able to prove the Bardeen-Petterson effect by thinning the accretion disk in their simulations and including the magnetized turbulence that causes accretion of the disk.
"These details around the black hole may seem minimal," said researcher Alexander Chekhovskoy in a press release, "but they have a huge impact on everything that happens in the galaxy.They control the speed with which black holes turn and, therefore, the effect of black holes on all of their galaxies. "
READ MORE: The most detailed simulations ever made of black holes solve a long-standing mystery [Northwestern University]
More on black holes: Scientists have just released the very first image of a black hole
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