Scientists spot light behind black hole for the first time

In no time, astronomers have brought us closer than ever to black holes with unprecedented images of cosmic giants. Now, for the first time, scientists have seen the phenomena taking place behind them. As part of this breakthrough, researchers observed and captured light behind a supermassive black hole 800 million light years away.

According to Stanford astrophysicist Dan Wilkins, the latest breakthrough is a “key part of the puzzle for understanding” how the universe came into being. Moreover, it seems to confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity from over a century ago.

By studying the bright bursts of x-rays emanating from the black hole, a feature known as the corona, the researchers also observed weaker flashes of light. These were the “light echoes” of flares bouncing off the gas behind the black hole. This phenomenon was first predicted by Einstein in his theory of relativity published in 1916.

“All the light that enters this black hole doesn’t come out, so we shouldn’t be able to see anything behind the black hole,” Wilkins explained. “The reason we can see it is that this black hole distorts space, bending light and twisting the magnetic fields around it.

The supermassive black hole is 10 million times more massive than our Sun and located at the center of a nearby spiral galaxy called I Zwicky 1. An international group of scientists have witnessed the echoes using XMM-Newton space telescopes from the European Space Agency and NASA NuSTAR. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.

“The color of those lightning bolts, the color of those echoes as well as the time they were delayed after the original rocket told us they were echoes from the gas that is hidden from our view behind. the black hole, ”noted Wilkins. “Some of it will shine again on the gas falling into the black hole, and it gives us a truly unique view of this material in its final moments before it gets lost in the black hole.”