Artist impressions of the SS 433 series. It depicts the massive jet (blue) and the surrounding Manatee Nebula (red).
MPIK/HESS Science Communication Lab
The most powerful cosmic rays we can see on Earth likely come from microquasars, tiny black holes that spew out jets of material from orbiting stars.
Unlike large quasars, which feature supermassive black holes, microquasars contain black holes with masses close to that of the Sun. The first microquasar, SS 433, was discovered in 1977, but understanding the nature of its light-year-long jet, which spins like a top, is difficult because its structure varies markedly depending on the form of light used. It was difficult because it was visible. Observe them.
When observing SS 433 using X-rays and even high-energy gamma rays, the jets appear to originate very far away from the black hole itself. Until recently, astronomers could only take blurry photos of them.
now, laura olivera nieto and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, used the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) telescope in Namibia to observe the jet’s gamma rays. They found that the jet’s high-energy structure changes over short distances. This suggests that radiation is produced when electrons collide with some sort of barrier and are accelerated.
If this process also occurs in heavier particles such as atomic nuclei, then the microquasars closest to Earth would be operating in the same way, explaining the mysterious high-energy cosmic rays we see. It’s possible, but so far the researchers can only say for sure that it’s electrons. It is being accelerated.
“Compared to what accelerators look like on Earth, this is really remarkable, because you have huge machines that are very complex and are struggling to reach peak conditions.” [energy] The values we find in the universe. And these systems are somehow doing that seamlessly,” Olivera Nieto said.
“This is a beautiful reminder of the impact that black holes have far beyond the event horizon,” he says. katherine blurndell at Oxford University. It’s possible that heavier particles are being accelerated to produce high-energy cosmic rays, but careful calculations and observations will be needed to confirm this, she says.
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