| Ilustrasi blazar. Foto: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab |
Recently, researchers solved the mystery of the source of the brightest light in the black hole. The results of their research were published in the journal Nature Astronomy under the title Polarized Blazar X-rays Imply Particle Acceleration in Shocks by Yannis Liodakis et al.
"This is a 40-year-old mystery that we have solved. We finally have all the pieces of the puzzle, and the picture is clear," said Finnish Center for Astronomy with ESO (FINCA) astronomer Yannis Liodakis, quoted from Science Alert , Wednesday ( 30/30/2019). 11/2022).
According to scientists, the shock waves in black holes increase the speed of the Particles very drastically. As a result, the shock waves and the acceleration of the motion of these particles are what produce the very high-energy light billions of years ago.
The Most Bright Light in the Universe at a Black Hole
The researchers found that the brightest lights in the universe that are located in supermassive black holes do not come from black holes themselves.
Instead, they originate from the hot matter around them, while actively sucking up a lot of matter from their surroundings.
Between these vortexes of hot and bright matter are galaxies called blazars. These galaxies glow with heat from the swirling mantle, then funnel matter into "blazing" rays that permeate the cosmos. The rays in blazars emit electromagnetic radiation at energies researchers don't yet fully understand.
Galactic activity involves the accretion of matter, aka the growth of space objects whose gravity pulls on more matter like gas in the accretion disk.
Massive clouds gather around the black hole, forming a disk. Friction and gravity in the area surrounding the black hole causes gas and other material to heat up, then glow brightly, at various wavelengths.
That's where one of the black hole's light sources emerges.
Light on Blazars
In addition, the light in blazars also comes from twin bursts of material originating from the polar region outside the black hole. Its position is perpendicular to the black hole disk.
These bursts of matter are seen as material on the inner edge of the black hole disk. However, instead of falling into the black hole, it accelerates along external magnetic field lines to the poles. As a result, this space material is launched at very high speeds, almost as fast as the speed of light.
The blazars galaxies have jets of material perpendicular to Earth. Because the particles in blazars travel at extreme speeds, they are blazing with light across the electromagnetic spectrum, including high-energy gamma rays and X-rays.
Technology to Solve the Mystery of Black Hole Light
Through a new X-ray telescope technology called Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) which was released last December 2021, scientists can find out how the speed of particles becomes very high and creates bright light in the universe.
"The first X-ray polarization measurements from this source allow direct comparison with models developed from observations of other light frequencies, ranging from radio to very high-energy gamma rays, for the first time," said astronomer Immacolata Donnarumma of the Italian Space Agency.
In this study, the IXPE X-ray telescope was turned into the brightest high-energy object in the sky, a blazar named Markarian 501.
For six days in March 2022, the telescope collected data on X-rays emitted by erupting blazars.
From these observations, it is known that the rays are more bent, or polarized. These observations also prove that the speeding of matter generates shock waves that provide additional acceleration. The closer to the shock wave, the faster the particles accelerate, giving rise to X radiation.
The researchers concluded that blazars are one of the most powerful particle accelerators in the universe, and one of the best laboratories for understanding extreme physics. detik.com/tag/alam-semesta
However, it is currently unknown what causes the shock wave that triggers the acceleration of the particles. Future research could find out whether the faster material in the streak catches up with the clumps of slower particles causing a collision.
