NuSTAR Probes Black Hole Jet Mystery

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NuSTAR Probes Black Hole Jet Mystery

Post by bystander » Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:25 pm

NuSTAR Probes Black Hole Jet Mystery
NASA | JPL-Caltech | NuSTAR | 2017 Oct 30
[img3="This artist's concept shows a black hole with an accretion disk -- a flat structure
of material orbiting the black hole - and a jet of hot gas, called plasma.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
"]https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/nustar/ ... 030-16.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
Black holes are famous for being ravenous eaters, but they do not eat everything that falls toward them. A small portion of material gets shot back out in powerful jets of hot gas, called plasma, that can wreak havoc on their surroundings. Along the way, this plasma somehow gets energized enough to strongly radiate light, forming two bright columns along the black hole's axis of rotation. Scientists have long debated where and how this happens in the jet.

Astronomers have new clues to this mystery. Using NASA's NuSTAR space telescope and a fast camera called ULTRACAM on the William Herschel Observatory in La Palma, Spain, scientists have been able to measure the distance that particles in jets travel before they "turn on" and become bright sources of light. This distance is called the "acceleration zone." The study is published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Scientists looked at two systems in the Milky Way called "X-ray binaries," each consisting of a black hole feeding off of a normal star. They studied these systems at different points during periods of outburst -- which is when the accretion disk -- a flat structure of material orbiting the black hole -- brightens because of material falling in. ...

New Insight into Nature's Own "Death Star" Beams
University of Sheffield UK | 2017 Oct 30

An Elevation of 0.1 Light-Second for the Optical Jet Base in an Accreting Galactic Black Hole System - Poshak Gandhi et al
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=274651#p274651
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