How did scientists calculate the speed of a supermassive black hole? Much in the same way crash-scene investigators can determine the speed of a car on impact. This cosmic predator gobbled up a star and left only its “wobbling” remains after imposing a grisly death. Live Science explains: https://flip.it/AkUicp #Science#Space#BlackHoles
The black hole that ate its own star. This is some neat science!
A new paper reports that VFTS 243, a massive binary system featuring an O-class star and a 10 solar-mass black hole companion, might have formed through the 'complete collapse scenario'.
What did we do & why is this interesting? Deep technical dive ahead!
We learn about accreting #BlackHoles studying their spectra & short-term (~millisecond) variability, called timing. However, individually, both approaches leave us with a lot of puzzles - so we try to combine them in spectral-timing.
We also see a rather puzzling feature in the hard state at low energies- a jump in time lag, accompanied by a loss of coherence.
We have some ideas what it may be, but no definitive answer. But we do see it in other sources, too! (We haven't seen it before because there was no instrument with NICER's spectral and timing coverage!)
Yes, parts V to VII of this series were my PhD thesis back in the days (and there are two more PhD thesis in the earlier papers of the series). Ole is proudly carrying on the work!
And it's also fun to see how we keep adding more pieces to the puzzle but also how much there is that we still don't know when it comes to variability.
There is far more than one PhD thesis in this source still :D
"Nasa has released footage simulating what it's like being sucked into a black hole, a region of space with such strong gravity not even light can escape." #Astronomy#Cosmology#BlackHoles#NASA
It’s now thought that they could illuminate fundamental questions in #physics, settle questions about #Einstein’s theories, & even help explain the #universe.
…In recent yrs, the amt of data that scientists have discovered about black holes has grown exponentially.
It’s in these simple, outlandish objects, Broderick explained,“that 20th-cen #physics breaks down.”…Basically, there’s #Einstein’s theory of general #relativity (which made a tiny but far-reaching correction to #Newton’s concept of #gravity), & there’s #QuantumMechanics. “General relativity is thought of as the theory of the very large & massive, & quantum mechanics is the theory of the very small or very cold,” Broderick said. #BlackHoles are massive(gen relativity), & cold (quantum mechanics).
But, when scientists attempt to use these theories to describe what happens in the interior of a #BlackHole, the implications are, as another astrophysicist put it, “a disaster.” Or, as Broderick put it, the theories “give very different answers.”