Light from far side of Black Holes!
A team of astrophysicists have detected X-rays from behind the black hole by using NASA's NuSTAR (Neutron Spectroscopic Telescope Array) & ESA's XMM-Newton (X-ray Multi Mirror Mission) X-ray data. The telescopes have captured the X-ray light from a 800 million light years distant spiral galaxy, I Zwicky 1.
Black holes are wild hungers who suck up everything that come on their way. But light from behind the black hole?
Wilkins, an author of the paper & a research scientist said,
“ The reason we can see that is because that black hole is warping the space-time, bending light & twisting magnetic field around itself."
Black holes heat up the materials to millions of degrees & accelerates it to higher velocities which in turn produces magnetic fields. When these field lines get twisted up, they release the energy stored in knots in the form of X-rays & gamma rays.
The research published in the journal Nature on July 28, 2021 says that they have seen 'colors' of flashes which is just because of the origin of particles from different parts of the accretion disk.
Researchers said,
“These are the photons that reverberate off the far side of the disk, and are bent around the black hole & magnified by the strong gravitational field."
Wilkins team was actually hunting mysterious 'corona' of the black holes to understand them better which led them to this discovery, a result of Einstein's General theory of relativity. Now, scientists are planning to use this technique to make a 3D map of black hole's environment.
Originally published at The AstronEra