Matter Rides Black Hole's Space-Time Wave
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SAN DIEGO -- Armed with cosmic speed guns and other high-tech devices, astronomers have witnessed amazing speeds around one black hole and an exotic wave in space-time careening around another.
The findings are among the most convincing ever of the incredible velocities and distortions that occur very close to black holes, and they help provide better estimates of the masses of the black holes. They also showcase a new method for getting an even better handle on these gravitational behemoths.
In one finding, a spinning black hole appears to create an orbiting wave. In a gross oversimplification, the process is similar to the wobble of a spinning top. The other study found evidence of hotspots -- perhaps blobs of hot gas the size of the Sun, or maybe regions lit by magnetic energy -- travelling at 10 percent the speed of light.
The results were presented here Monday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Black hole basics
Black holes are so dense they can trap light. They can't be seen, but astronomers find them by noting their gravitational effect on surrounding objects or by seeing X-rays and other radiation kicked up in their vicinity when gas is superheated as it swirls in at phenomenal speeds.
The infalling gas forms a thin disk, theory says. From this accretion disk come the X-rays used in the new research.
Any object with mass warps the space and time around it, in much the same way a heavy object deforms a stretched elastic sheet. Light passing by a very massive star or galaxy can be noticeably bent, for example.
Einstein's work predicts all this. But beyond Einstein, even stranger things are predicted. If an object spins, it further distorts space-time; imagine the elastic sheet being twisted by a heavy, spinning heavy.
The effect is called frame dragging. It is a modification to the simpler aspects of gravity set out by Newton. Working from Einstein's relativity theory, Austrian physicists Joseph Lense and Hans Thirring predicted frame dragging in 1918. (It is also known as the Lense-Thirring effect.)
Other studies have found evidence for spinning black holes and the warping of space-time around them. Even the rotation of Earth has been shown to distort nearby space-time, causing satellites to be dragged by 6 feet (2 meters) every year.
Frame dragging may play an important role in the twisted physics that cause black holes not just to swallow light and matter, but to spit out tremendous amounts of hot gas in high-velocity jets seen in several studies.
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Astronomers have discovered evidence for physics beyond Einstein's general relativity. This artist's conception shows a galactic black hole being orbited by a ripple in spacetime--a distortion in the fabric of space itself. Credit: Dana Berry (CfA/NASA).
Going Beyond Einstein: Spacetime Wave Orbits Black Hole
very interesting
Sir Ulli
SAN DIEGO -- Armed with cosmic speed guns and other high-tech devices, astronomers have witnessed amazing speeds around one black hole and an exotic wave in space-time careening around another.
The findings are among the most convincing ever of the incredible velocities and distortions that occur very close to black holes, and they help provide better estimates of the masses of the black holes. They also showcase a new method for getting an even better handle on these gravitational behemoths.
In one finding, a spinning black hole appears to create an orbiting wave. In a gross oversimplification, the process is similar to the wobble of a spinning top. The other study found evidence of hotspots -- perhaps blobs of hot gas the size of the Sun, or maybe regions lit by magnetic energy -- travelling at 10 percent the speed of light.
The results were presented here Monday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Black hole basics
Black holes are so dense they can trap light. They can't be seen, but astronomers find them by noting their gravitational effect on surrounding objects or by seeing X-rays and other radiation kicked up in their vicinity when gas is superheated as it swirls in at phenomenal speeds.
The infalling gas forms a thin disk, theory says. From this accretion disk come the X-rays used in the new research.
Any object with mass warps the space and time around it, in much the same way a heavy object deforms a stretched elastic sheet. Light passing by a very massive star or galaxy can be noticeably bent, for example.
Einstein's work predicts all this. But beyond Einstein, even stranger things are predicted. If an object spins, it further distorts space-time; imagine the elastic sheet being twisted by a heavy, spinning heavy.
The effect is called frame dragging. It is a modification to the simpler aspects of gravity set out by Newton. Working from Einstein's relativity theory, Austrian physicists Joseph Lense and Hans Thirring predicted frame dragging in 1918. (It is also known as the Lense-Thirring effect.)
Other studies have found evidence for spinning black holes and the warping of space-time around them. Even the rotation of Earth has been shown to distort nearby space-time, causing satellites to be dragged by 6 feet (2 meters) every year.
Frame dragging may play an important role in the twisted physics that cause black holes not just to swallow light and matter, but to spit out tremendous amounts of hot gas in high-velocity jets seen in several studies.
...
Full Story
more Info
Astronomers have discovered evidence for physics beyond Einstein's general relativity. This artist's conception shows a galactic black hole being orbited by a ripple in spacetime--a distortion in the fabric of space itself. Credit: Dana Berry (CfA/NASA).
Going Beyond Einstein: Spacetime Wave Orbits Black Hole
very interesting
Sir Ulli
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