Scientists announced the first observation of light from behind a black hole.
Black holes are known for having such a strong gravitational pull that not even light can escape them, but that doesn't mean light can't bend around them – in fact, extremely strong gravity does the most likely.
A new study by researchers observed this phenomenon for the first time, the European Space Agency announced on Wednesday.
The researchers, led by Dan Wilkins of Stanford University, used the ESA XMM-Newton and NASA NuSTAR space telescopes to observe the light from behind a supermassive black hole located at the center of a nearby spiral galaxy called I Zwicky 1, about 800 million light years from Earth.
The study didn't expect to see anything, instead it aimed to discover more information about the "corona" of a black hole.
The "corona", the researchers theorized, was the result of gas constantly falling into the black hole, creating a rotating disk around it.
The gas, however, creates a path for light to bend around the black hole itself: The gas heats up to millions of degrees and generates magnetic fields that spin the knot until it snaps, releasing the energy stored within it. The explosion also produces X-ray light so bright that it reflects off the gas disk and falls into and around the black hole.
Light is called an "echo," and bending is a phenomenon that Albert Einstein predicted in his theory of General Relativity.
The phenomenon is more than just a cool trick: The light also changes color as it bends depending on the environment. Astronomers believe they can use this light to create a 3D map of a black hole and its surroundings.
"It's a key piece of the puzzle to understanding how galaxies formed and how the universe as we know it came to be," Dr. Wilkins said, according to ABC 7.
(BalkanWeb)
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