A giant gamma ray burst is seen from a supermassive black hole

Recently, a group of researchers saw a gamma-ray burst from a distant supermassive black hole tens of millions of times larger than the black hole’s event horizon, the region beyond which even light cannot escape.

The gamma-ray burst emitted photons billions of times more energetic than visible light, making it the most intense flare observed in a decade. miles (24 billion kilometers) away.published in today Astronomy and astrophysics— describes the extreme environment surrounding the black hole M87 (also conveniently and confusingly named M87).

More than 300 scientists co-authored the paper, which examines the physics of a black hole.This cosmic phenomenon pulls matter into its core and energizes the surrounding particles, launching them into massive jets of matter collide with objects in the surrounding space environment and can be giant; a pair of jets described in September they are 140 times longer than the width of the Milky Way galaxy.

“We still don’t fully understand how particles are accelerated near a black hole or inside a jet,” said Weidong Jin, a UCLA researcher and corresponding author of the paper at the university. release. “These particles are so energetic that they travel at close to the speed of light, and we want to understand where and how they get that energy. Our study represents the most comprehensive spectral data ever collected for this galaxy, as well as modeling of these processes.” to shed light on.”

The team found a change between the position of the event horizon and the angle and position of the black hole jets, indicating that the interaction between particles and the event horizon affects the position of the jets.

“This effort promises to shed light on the jet connection of the disk and reveal the sources and mechanisms of the emission of gamma-ray photons,” said Giacomo Principe, a researcher at the University of Trieste and co-author of the paper at the Center. for astrophysics |: Harvard and Smithsonian release.

Only two black holes have been directly imaged so far.Since light cannot escape from their event horizons, when we say “directly imaged,” we mean that the black hole’s shadow is directly imaged at the center of the energetic, light-emitting galaxy M87 supermassive black hole was was suddenly revealed in 2019the first to be depicted by mankind.

Further observations have shown it to be a black hole hesitatingand has a softer ring than previously thought.The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration took an image of M87 and tracked it Sagittarius A* characterthe black hole at the center of our galaxy, 2022

“Observations, both recently with the more sensitive EHT array and those planned for years to come, will provide invaluable insights and an extraordinary opportunity to study the physics of M87’s supermassive black hole,” Principe added.

As imaging techniques improve, as do astrophysicists’ models for understanding these distant and extreme environments, we’ll get a better look at some of the structures that make up our universe we know them.