Scientists have managed to observe a metaphorical buffet of all-consuming masses in the center of the galaxy, the never-before-seen periphery of the accretion disk of a supermassive black hole, according to a recent study. But it turns out that it was all a coincidence.
This groundbreaking observation was made possible despite the many obstacles surrounding observing such a distant object in space adjacent to something that absorbs all light.
The results of this survey are study Published in a peer-reviewed academic journal Astrophysics Journal Letter.
Black Hole Buffet: What is an accretion disk and why is it so elusive?
A normal black hole forms when a large star dies, causing a concentration of gravity so strong that it pulls in everything around it, even light. This, of course, makes them incredibly mysterious and difficult to really see. Scientists have only figured it out by observing how its gravity affects everything around it.
But supermassive black holes are even bigger, technically capable of measuring over 100,000 solar masses, but also millions and billions of solar masses. To put this into perspective, one solar mass is equivalent to the Sun.
These black holes are very important in the universe because they are found at the center of almost every galaxy. This includes our own Milky Way galaxy, home to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.
The accretion disk surrounds all the supermassive black holes at the center of the galaxy. The term specifically refers to the process by which a black hole collects more matter (accretion).
These disks are filled with rapidly rotating hot gas and emit light, but black holes themselves do not.
In fact, the accretion disk is so bright that it may contribute to the development of active galactic nuclei. Active galactic nuclei are particularly bright regions at the center of galaxies, with features that indicate that their light is not produced by stars.
Scientists are very interested in studying accretion disks. Because the accretion disk is the source of nutrition for black holes, studying the accretion disk helps us understand how black holes develop and how galaxies develop around them. . But they are very hard to see. The only way a scientist can actually confirm that a supermassive black hole exists around it is through a very high profile known as a bimodal profile, aside from his two cases where the accretion disk was the only one directly imaged. Whether or not there is a special bright line pattern. The Event Horizon Telescope takes pictures of black holes.
These emissions occur when atoms begin to emit light with decreasing energy levels and often appear as sharp spikes in spectral analysis. But in accretion disks around supermassive black holes, these lines usually look more like peaks.
How do you study something relatively small like an accretion disk?
The scientists involved in this study were able to do just that by sheer chance.
This was done using the Gemini North Telescope. Located in Hawaii, the telescope is often used to study supermassive black holes, star formation, distant quasars, and more.
This allowed the researchers to detect a elusive near-infrared emission line from the distant accretion disk of galaxy III Zw 002.
However, the discovery itself was discovered by chance during observations with the Gemini near-infrared spectrometer to complement the findings of previous studies on III Zw002.
What does this mean?
Well, the emission lines must be coming from somewhere. One of the two lines found in this study was from the inner region of the disc where the lines originate. But one of the other lines comes from a different location, a region of the accretion disk that has never been observed before.
Brazilian researcher Alberto Rodríguez Ardila, who was involved in the study, said, “The detection of such double peak profiles imposes, for the first time, strong constraints on the geometry of otherwise unsolvable regions. became,” he said. “And now we have clear evidence of feeding processes and internal structures in active galaxies.”
Further study of this galaxy and its accretion disk may reveal even more information about these mysterious objects in space.
