Washington, Sept 21 (ANI): NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has helped astronomers captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.
Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes.
Much has been learned about the material feeding black holes, called accretion disks, and the jets themselves through studies using X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves.
But key measurements of the brightest part of the jets, located at their bases, have been difficult despite decades of work.
WISE is offering a new window into this missing link through its infrared observations.
"Imagine what it would be like if our Sun were to undergo sudden, random bursts, becoming three times brighter in a matter of hours, and then fading back again. That's the kind of fury we observed in this jet," said Poshak Gandhi, a scientist with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and lead author of the study.
"With WISE's infrared vision, we were able to zoom in on the inner regions near the base of the stellar-mass black hole's jet for the first time and the physics of jets in action," he said.
The results surprised the team, showing huge and erratic fluctuations in the jet activity on timescales ranging from 11 seconds to a few hours.
The observations are like a dance of infrared colours and show the size of the jet's base varies.
Its radius is approximately 15,000 miles with dramatic changes by as large as a factor of 10 or more.
The findings appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.(ANI)
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