Freaky Friday: NASA captures something escaping a black hole
If there is one thing that science has taught us, is that nothing escapes the raw power of a black hole.
A black hole is a region of spacetime which exhibits such strong gravitational effects that nothing, not even particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light, can escape it.
Yet, something rather unusual has happened. Two of NASA’s space telescopes have observed a black hole’s corona being “launched” away from the super-massive black hole known as Markarian 335.
Following this unusual happening, a massive burst of X-Ray energy exited the black hole. Can anyone say it just got real? After all, if nothing can escape a black hole, what is so powerful that it can launch out of it with a tail of dazzling X-Ray energy following it?
But what does this mean? Dan Wilkins from Saint Mary’s University claims this a big deal, as it is the first time that scientists have been able to link the launching of the corona to a flare. “This will help us understand how super-massive blackholes power some of the brightest objects in the universe,” said Wilkins in a statement quoted by Viral Thread.
While Wilkins is rather excited about the spectacular discovery, there are some who are more curious than ever.
Fiona Harrison, the chief investigator behind the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), one of the telescopes which captured the X-Ray escaping the black hole, calls the burst of energy mysterious. Stating that it will be deeply investigated for months and years to come.
While describing the energetic source of X-Rays as mysterious, Harrison says with dramatic changes such as this, scientists are now able to gather clues about the black hole’s size and structure.
As the phenomena is investigated, one thing that science fiction movies and series such as Event Horizon and Doctor Who has taught me, is that nothing friendly ever hides in a black hole.
Luckily Markarian 335 is over 300 million light years away. But with space exploration topping the list of most leading countries agendas, I am sure that we will see an impressive amount of effort going into unraveling the mysteries of blackholes and of course reaching them with ease.
