A supermassive black hole has such a high density that light that enters it cannot leave again. Likewise, the gravitational environment around this astronomical object is so extreme that we should theoretically see light bending around it and bouncing back to the viewer from behind the black hole, as predicted by General Relativity.
At the heart of the irregular galaxy I Zwicky 1, located 45 million light-years from Earth, astronomers at Stanford University have made the first direct observation of light behind a black hole, proving that Albert Einstein was right.
According to the research team, the discovery was made possible by the detection of small flashes of X-rays in the supermassive black hole located in the irregular galaxy I Zwicky 1, and they explain that the detection of this light was possible due to the characteristics so special to black holes that they warp space, bending light and twisting magnetic environment around them.
“The light that goes into the black hole doesn’t come out, so we shouldn’t be able to see anything beyond the black hole, but the reason we can see X-ray echoes is because the black hole is warping space.” bending light and twisting magnetic fields around themselves,” he explained it’s a statement Dr. Dan Wilkins, an astrophysicist at Stanford University and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.
Of all the elements that make up a black hole, perhaps the most famous is the “event horizon,” which is the boundary between the black hole itself and the space that surrounds it, the point beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape. (…) Another element of a black hole is its corona, i.e. a region that acts as a synchrotron, accelerating and heating the electrons that are around it to such an extent that they glow intensely in the electromagnetic spectrum in the X-ray length.
“This magnetic field that gets stuck and then gets close to the black hole heats up everything around it and produces these high-energy electrons, which then glow brightly in the X-ray wavelength.” he explained Dr. Wilkins said in a statement. This is the first direct observation of light behind a black hole, a scenario predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity but only now confirmed.
“Fifty years ago, when astrophysicists began speculating about how the magnetic field might behave in the vicinity of a black hole, they had no idea that one day we might have the techniques to observe them directly and see Einstein’s general theory of relativity in action.” he explained. it’s a statement Dr. Roger Blandford of Stanford University and co-author of the study.
This new study joins several that have been published in recent months, reaffirming the theories of famous physicists such as Stephen Hawking… and now Albert Einstein. As the authors explain well, new technologies at observatories that study black holes will allow us to learn more about them… perhaps there are yet-to-be-discovered laws of physics that govern the space these astronomical objects make up.
The research is available at Nature.
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