Team of Indian and British astronomers discovers new details of black hole 10,000 light years away

-

   The black hole system is ‘MAXI J1820+070’, at least 10,000 light years away, and was first discovered in 2018. Its mass is the equivalent of seven Suns compressed into a region smaller than the city of London.

Team of Indian and British astronomers discovers new details of black hole 10,000 light years away
       An international team of astronomers, including from the University of Southampton and Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), have used state-of-the-art cameras to create a high frame-rate movie of a growing black hole system at a level of detail never seen before. In the process, they have uncovered new clues to understanding the immediate surroundings of these enigmatic objects.
    An official statement issued Friday said that John Paice, a joint PhD student at the University of Southampton, UK and IUCAA, Pune, was the lead author of the study and also the artist who created the movie. He is part of an Indo-UK programme led by Professor Poshak Gandhi of University of Southampton and Professor Ranjeev Misra of IUCAA.
   The black hole system is ‘MAXI J1820+070’, at least 10,000 light years away, and was first discovered in 2018. Its mass is the equivalent of seven Suns compressed into a region smaller than the city of London. Black holes can feed off a nearby star and create vast accretion discs of material. Here, the effect of the black hole’s strong gravity and the material’s own magnetic field can cause rapidly changing levels of radiation, which are emitted from the system as a whole.
   This radiation is what was detected in visible light by the HiPERCAM instrument on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain) and in X-rays by NASA’s NICER observatory aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Investigating these systems is usually very difficult, as their distances make them too faint and too small to see. These kinds of observations are not possible even by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which recently took a picture of the black hole at the centre of the galaxy M87.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Here are the unexpected places where germs live

-
Image
Your quest to avoid pathogens might take you down the wrong path. Here's what germaphobes should know. Attention all germaphobes… We see you on the train, packed together with everyone else during rush hour, and you refuse to hold on. You won’t touch the pole, or loop your hand through one of those overhead tether things. You’re standing there “surfing” with your arms crossed on your chest. Why? Because you’re afraid every surface you touch is where germs live, covered in bacteria and viruses. And, look, you’re not totally wrong. According to a 2016 study, public transportation is host to hundreds of bacterial colony-forming units per square inch. But consider this: When the train brakes unexpectedly and you topple over into a crowd of strangers, won’t that expose you to even more germs? If you’re germaphobic, it’s easy to become so obsessive that you end up missing the point. You only touch the lift buttons with your knuckle. But isn’t that the same knuckle you use to rub your eye
Read more

CHANDRAYAAN 2: NASA'S LRO PERFORMS SECOND FLYOVER TO LOCATE VIKRAM'S LANDING SITE ON THE MOON

-
Image
NASA has scheduled a flyover of its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) over the landing site of India’s Vikram Lander yesterday, 14 October. It is trying to locate ISRO's Vikram lander and capture images of it. We just might get lucky this time around and finally see the condition of the crashed lander as the lighting conditions are thought to be better. The LRO, on a previous occasion (17 September),  has flown over the landing site  but was not able to see Vikram because it was dusk at the lunar South Pole. "Long shadows in the area" was thought to be obscuring the area. However, NASA did release images of the moon and the site where the lander is  thought to have crashed . The lander is most likely dead after the lunar night. (14 earth days makes up one lunar night).   ISRO had said once the lunar night falls , there would be no sunlight for the lander to generate power for its working and also it was not designed to operate in the heavy cold temperature of moo
Read more