While analyzing X-rays from a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy 800 million light-years away, scientists at Stanford University noticed a strange pattern. Scientists believe that it is the black hole that emits these rays into the universe.
Scientists who explain this phenomenon hypothesize that X-rays can be emitted from black holes after they burn up when gas rushes in at high speed.
Short X-ray flashes were observed after the flares stopped when gas entered the black hole. Flaming reflections from the outer edge of the disc matched these flashes, the scientists reported.
Dan Wilkins, who was involved in the study, saw a number of exciting but often baffling X-ray emissions. The sudden appearance of other X-ray flashes surprised astronomers because they had different "colours" than the later, smaller, more powerful flares.
Amazingly, these spectacular echoes are consistent with X-rays reflected from the black hole's shadow. Wilkins says that since no light penetrates a black hole, we cannot detect anything behind it.
Wilkins is a research scientist at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
But another unusual property of black holes made this discovery possible. "That black hole twists space, bending light and magnetic fields around itself," Wilkins continued.
This was the first direct detection of light coming directly from a black hole, a scientific hypothesis suggested by Einstein's theory of general relativity. But this aspect of Einstein's theory of general relativity had not been proven before.
The initial goal of this research was to understand the puzzling characteristics of some black holes. But research has also revealed a number of surprising findings.
