A "surprisingly" small, active black hole, located 15,000 light-years away, is illuminating a neighboring gas cloud in a common, defined rhythm, in a strange but wonderful phenomenon.
The black hole system in question is called SS 433 and is considered Microquasar: a black hole between 10 and 20 solar masses, while its companion binary star is 30 times the mass of our sun.
The pair orbit each other about 100 light-years away every 13 days, with the gas cloud pulsating in time at the basic rhythm of the black hole.
The exact cause of this pulse is not known, except that it is unlikely that plasma jets will emit from the black hole, and instead it may be a form of galactic light thanks to cosmic rays, which are high-energy protons that travel at nearly the speed of light, and since the black hole swings on its rotating axis Like the rotating summit, the behavior of cosmic rays is already somewhat striking.
Astrophysicist Jian Li of Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Germany said finding such an apparent correlation across timing, about 100 light-years from the tiny quasar, is as unexpected as it is startling.
Li and his team observed SS 433 for ten years, and found that the plasma flow emanating from the black hole loses its shape approximately every 162 days, changing its shape from spiral to conical, as the gas cloud pulses with rhythm.
This behavior challenges the existing theoretical models about these tiny stars, and could upend them completely.
"The SS 433 continues to dazzle observers of all frequencies and theorists alike," the researchers wrote, "and is sure to provide a test of our ideas about cosmic ray production and propagation near precise stars for years to come."
The Source: arabic.rt.com
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