Friday, March 29, 2024
News

New state of black hole could help study gravity role in evolution of galaxies

   SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend    Print this Page   COMMENT

New Delhi | Thursday, 2021 4:15:05 PM IST
Indian astronomers have found an active galaxy in a very bright state with 10 times more X-ray emission than normal, equivalent to more than 10 trillion of the sun, and located five billion light years away that could help probe how particles behave under intense gravity and acceleration to the speed of light.

It could help study the role of strong gravity and acceleration of matter in the formation, interaction and evolution of galaxies in the early universe.

Every galaxy in the universe is believed to host a supermassive black hole at its centre. In some galaxies, the black hole is actively devouring a large amount of material and shooting a jet of plasma almost at the speed of light towards us. These are called blazars.

OJ 287 belongs to a class of blazars known as BL Lacertae objects which show very rapid and large amplitude flux variations but barely discernible emission line features.

This class of sources emit in the whole electromagnetic spectrum, a rather uncommon phenomenon which requires extreme physical conditions. Hence, a study of such sources tells us about the behaviour of matter in an extreme gravitational field where it is difficult for light to escape from the vicinity of the black hole.

Astronomers at Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, have been monitoring one such black hole system named 'OJ 287' since 2015. This source shows a repeated optical brightness enhancement almost every 12 years.

"The repeated optical enhancement makes OJ 287 very intriguing as this class of sources does not show any repeating features in flux variations. The repeated optical enhancement made the researchers believe that the system hosts a binary black hole," said a release from the Ministry of Science and Technology.

In 2020, the source was very bright at optical and X-ray bands with X-ray flux more than 10 times the normal (non-active phase) flux. This flare was very different as it was not expected in models proposed for this source and thus, indicated a more complex system and physical conditions.

Investigating the extreme brightness shown by OJ 287 at optical and X-ray bands, astronomers led by Pankaj Kushwaha and Alok C. Gupta reported the source in a completely new spectral state.

The team argued that this change of state holds clues to the researcher's quest to understand how matter behaves in very strong gravity and how it accelerates the particle to almost the speed of light -- a feat that is out of the scope of even the most advanced CERN accelerator.

The research published in 'The Astrophysical Journal' tracked the details of changes in optical to the X-ray emission spectrum of the source with time from 2017 to 2020 -- after the second brightest X-ray flare of the source. It revealed how the source gradually started to change its spectral behaviour from mid-2018 to the new spectral state in 2020.

The study included data recorded by the ground-based facility operated by Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, operated Mount Abu observing facility in near infra-red bands and the space-based NASA's satellites -- the Niels Gherel Swift satellite at optical, UV and X-rays with gamma ray data from the Fermi satellite, the release added.

--IANS niv/khz/dpb

( 561 Words)

2021-11-25-10:18:04 (IANS)

 
  LATEST COMMENTS ()
POST YOUR COMMENT
Comments Not Available
 
POST YOUR COMMENT
 
 
TRENDING TOPICS
 
 
CITY NEWS
MORE CITIES
 
 
 
MORE SCIENCE NEWS
AI technique accurately predicts deadly ...
Researchers discover new approach to tre...
Researchers discover how gene mutation r...
Climate change disrupts vital ecosystems...
Study finds how ageing reduces ability o...
Israeli researchers uncover biological p...
More...
 
INDIA WORLD ASIA
Uttar Pradesh: Security tightened in Ali...
'Three parties have allied directly...':...
Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena releases first...
Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhta...
Chennai: Three dead after false ceiling ...
'My father was being given slow poison; ...
More...    
 
 Top Stories
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to hold ra... 
Miami Open: Bopanna-Ebden storms in... 
Anju Bobby questions IOA's decision... 
"Three parties have allied directly... 
8 people killed after pickup truck ... 
IPL 2024: Rishabh Pant feels 'disap... 
Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena releases ... 
"Thought we could win series": Craw...