Astronomers observed jets ejected from a black hole cannibalizing a blue supergiant’s companion star. Using data from the Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKA) radio telescope, the research team was able to measure the power of these explosions, which turned out to be as powerful as the output of 10,000 suns. This could help reveal how the explosion is shaping the entire surrounding galaxy.
The system studied by the team is known as Cygnus X-1 (Cyg X-1) is located 7,000 light years away and is one of the brightest light sources. x-ray Up in the sky. Cyg X-1 is thought to be composed of stellar mass black hole It is estimated to have about 21 times the mass of the Sun, and the Sun gets its nutrition from a blue supergiant star.
The blue supergiant feeds material to the Cyg X-1 black hole via powerful electrical power. star wind It blows from there. However, because this material has angular momentum, or spin, it cannot fall directly into a black hole. Instead, it forms a flat, swirling cloud called an accretion disk, which gradually feeds the black hole.
The black hole’s massive gravity heats the accretion disk, causing the intense X-ray emission associated with Cyg X-1.
However, not all of this matter makes it to the black hole. Some of it is sent to the black hole’s poles, where it is spewed out in powerful jets. In addition to being able to measure the power output of these jets, astronomers also found that the jets travel at approximately 336 million miles per hour (150,000 km/s). speed of light.
Team leader Steve Prabh, from the University of Oxford, described the jet’s movement in the series of SKA images as “dancing.” This referred to the fact that the Cyg X-1 jet appeared to be deflected in different directions as the star and black hole orbited each other. Prabhu and his colleagues determined that stellar winds blowing from the star push the black hole jets, giving them the power to “dance.”
This discovery allows scientists to better understand how much energy black hole jets release into the environment.
“The key to this study is that about 10% of the energy released when matter falls toward a black hole is carried away by the jet,” Prabhu said. “This is something scientists typically assume in large-scale simulation models of the universe, but until now it has been difficult to confirm with observations.”
What’s even more exciting about this research is that it provides scientists with a way to measure the energy of jets ejected from other black holes, including much larger ones. supermassive black hole It is located at the center of all large galaxies and has millions or billions of times the mass of the Sun.
Curtin Institute for Radio Astronomy (CIRA) team member James Miller-Jones said: “Our theory suggests that the physics around black holes is very similar, so our measurements can be used to solidify our understanding of jets, whether they come from 10 or 10 million times the mass of the Sun.”
“The following radio telescope projects: square kilometer array observatory Currently under construction in Western Australia and South Africa, it is expected to detect jets from black holes in millions of distant galaxies, and the anchor point provided by this new measurement will help calibrate the overall output.
“Black hole jets provide an important source of feedback to the surrounding environment and are critical to understanding the evolution of galaxies.”
The team’s research was published in the journal Thursday (April 16). natural astronomy.
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