NASA-Discovered Symmetry In Black Hole Jets

Scientists at NASA have exposed a new stable that links various sizes of black holes. A black hole jet is the torrent of gamma radiation frequently emitted from the ‘event horizon’; the innermost rim and point of no go back, of a black hole. When gas gets sucked inside of the black hole, some of the substance becomes accelerated and races external as a pair of jets curving in opposite directions. Jets are seen in black holes of a lot of different sizes; from the modest-shaped, to the behemoth holes that power the centers of galaxies.

The group of scientists at NASA examined 54 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) as of the minor black holes and compared them to 234 blazers and quasars, the galactic-scale corresponding of GRBs emitted from super enormous black holes. The NASA team found the same set of physical rules governed the size of these jets, apart from of the black hole size.

RXTE Homes in on a Black Hole's Jets

For decades, X-ray astronomers have studied the complex behavior of binary systems pairing a normal star with a black hole. In these systems, gas from the normal star streams toward the black hole and forms a disk around it. Friction within the disk heats the gas to millions of degrees -- hot enough to produce X-rays. At the disk's inner edge, near the black hole, strong magnetic fields eject some of the gas into dual, oppositely directed jets that blast outward at about half the speed of light.

That's the big picture, but the details have been elusive. For example, do most of the X-rays arise from the jets? The disk? Or from a high-energy region on the threshold of the black hole?Now, astronomers using NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite, together with optical, infrared and radio data, find that, at times, most of the X-rays come from the jets.

"Theoretical models have suggested this possibility for several years, but this is the first time we've confirmed it through multiwavelength analysis," said David Russell, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam. Russell and his colleagues looked at a well-studied outburst of the black-hole binary XTE J1550-564. The system lies 17,000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Norma and contains a black hole with about 10 times the sun's mass.