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Something strange is happening 130 light years from the spiral galaxy NGC 3147: a thin disc of matter surrounding its hungry black hole completely surprises astronomers.
Discs like the one spotted in NGC 3147 – consisting of gas, dust and other debris driven into the orbit of the black hole – are normally found in more active galaxies, with larger black holes, which look a lot brighter for our telescopes.
Usually, the more a black hole traps gas, the more brilliant the accretion disk appears and the greater the energy released in the form of electromagnetic radiation called quasar. But the accretion disk from NGC 3147 seems to defy this trend.
This is because the black hole is relatively small – astronomers expected to see something more similar to an "inflated donut" rather than a crepe-like disc.
"The type of disc we see is a reduced quasar that we did not expect to exist," says astronomer and first author of the study, Stefano Bianchi, of Roma Tre University in Italy.
"It's the same type of disc we see in 1,000 or even 100,000 times brighter objects, and the predictions of current models for very weak active galaxies have clearly failed."
An observation of this type in deep space is only possible thanks to the Hubble telescope's super-powerful optics and, as Bianchi says, this could help us better understand the functioning of less galaxies active.
In particular, the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) was able to block the light of the surrounding galaxy to observe the velocity, temperature, and other characteristics of the material within the swirling disk.
In addition to being an anomaly, the disc is so close to the gravitational field of its black hole that its light is distorted and intensified, making it an even more fascinating discovery.
"It's an intriguing look on a record very close to a black hole, so close that the speeds and intensity of gravitational attraction affect the way we let's see the photons of light, "explains Bianchi.
This means that the system offers astronomers a rare opportunity to test the theories of relativity proposed by Albert Einstein. The visible light from the black hole disc in NGC 3147 may well help to analyze both general relativity and special relativity – how space, time, light, and gravity combine together.
It is also another example of the cosmos that continues to spark the unexpected – especially with regard to the mysteries of black holes.
Ironically, astronomers initially chose NGC 3147 as a candidate to prove records. could not form around little black holes, only to have the idea reversed.
"We thought it was the best candidate to confirm that below certain luminosities, the accretion disc no longer exists," says astronomer Ari Laor, of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
"What we saw was something completely unexpected: we found that the moving gas produced characteristics that we can only explain by producing a material rotating in a thin disc very close to the black hole. "
The research was published in the Monthly Notices from the Royal Astronomical Society.
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