Premium Only Content

X-ray Echoes Map a Black Hole’s Disk (part 4) #NASA #Space #Astronomy
Some 3.9 billion years ago in the heart of a distant galaxy, the tidal pull of a monster black hole shredded a star that wandered too close. X-rays produced in this event first reached Earth on March 28, 2011, when they were detected by NASA's Swift satellite. Within days, scientists concluded that the outburst, now known as Swift J1644+57, represented both the tidal disruption of a star and the sudden flare-up of a previously inactive black hole.
Now astronomers using archival observations from Swift, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatory and the Japan-led Suzaku satellite have identified the reflections of X-ray flares erupting during the event. Led by Erin Kara, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the University of Maryland, College Park, the team has used these light echoes, or reverberations, to map the flow of gas near a newly awakened black hole for the first time.
Swift J1644+57 is one of only three tidal disruptions that have produced high-energy X-rays, and to date it remains the only event caught at the peak of this emission. While astronomers don't yet understand what causes flares near the black hole, when one occurs they can detect its echo a couple of minutes later as its light washes over structures in the developing accretion disk. The technique, called X-ray reverberation mapping, has been used before to explore stable disks around black holes, but this is time it has been applied to a newly formed disk produced by a tidal disruption.
Swift J1644+57's accretion disk was thicker, more turbulent and more chaotic than stable disks, which have had time to settle down into an orderly routine. One surprise is that high-energy X-rays arise from the innermost regions of the disk instead of a narrow jet of accelerated particles, as originally thought.
The researchers estimate the black hole has a mass about a million times that of the sun. They expect future improvements in understanding and modeling accretion flows will allow them to measure the black hole's spin using this data.
Music:" The Orion Arm" and "Particle Acceleration," both from Killer Tracks.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger
Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2...
This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12265
If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel:
/ nasaexplorer
Or subscribe to NASA’s Goddard Shorts HD Podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f...
Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
· Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC
· Twitter http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard
· Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/
· Instagram http://www.instagram.com/nasagoddard/
· Google+ http://plus.google.com/+NASAGoddard/p...
#NASA
#Space
#Astronomy
#Exploration
#NASAHistory
#Science
#RocketLaunch
#Mars
#ISS
#NASAInspires
#SolarSystem
#TheFinalFrontier
#EarthScience
#Universe
-
LIVE
I_Came_With_Fire_Podcast
11 hours agoSecret Origins of Transhumanism & The New Atlantis
319 watching -
LIVE
GritsGG
1 day ago36 Hour Stream! Most Wins 3420+ 🧠
1,756 watching -
1:12:40
Wendy Bell Radio
8 hours agoPet Talk With The Pet Doc
30.2K25 -
LIVE
FusedAegisTV
12 hours agoStreet Fighter 6 FINALS, CS2 Semifinals | $1,250,000 | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia EWC 2025 !estv
138 watching -
40:42
SouthernbelleReacts
1 day ago $0.04 earned😂 American Pie (1999) Reaction | Iconic Teen Comedy, High School Chaos & 90s Nostalgia 🥧
13.5K1 -
LIVE
LumpyPotatoX2
2 hours agoBecome a HellDiver Today - #RumbleGaming
130 watching -
LIVE
Midnight In The Mountains
4 hours agoGaming w/ PER·SE·VER·ANCE | Sassy Saturday Fortnite | with the Midnights!
60 watching -
LIVE
shyboyking
2 hours agoThe Bots Of The Bots !!!😎
83 watching -
24:06
True Crime | Unsolved Cases | Mysterious Stories
5 days ago $0.16 earnedShe Traveled Alone… and Never Came Back – 5 Mysterious Unsolved Cases (Part 6)
13.1K5 -
27:23
Clickbait Wasteland
16 hours ago $0.04 earnedAsking New Yorkers Who They Support For Mayor: Staten Island
19.5K8