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Light detected behind a black hole for the first time - CNN

Light detected behind a black hole for the first time - CNN

Light detected behind a black hole for the first time - CNN
Aug 02, 2021 1 min, 15 secs

"Any light that goes into that black hole doesn't come out, so we shouldn't be able to see anything that's behind the black hole," said Wilkins, study author and research scientist at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, in a statement.

However, the black hole's strange nature actually made the observation possible.

"The reason we can see that is because that black hole is warping space, bending light and twisting magnetic fields around itself," he said.

The study published last Wednesday in the journal Nature.

"Fifty years ago, when astrophysicists starting speculating about how the magnetic field might behave close to a black hole, they had no idea that one day we might have the techniques to observe this directly and see Einstein's general theory of relativity in action," said Roger Blandford, study coauthor and the Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and professor of physics at Stanford University, in a statement.

Some black holes have a corona, or a ring of bright light that forms around a black hole as material falls into it and becomes heated to extreme temperatures.

This is why scientists refer to the ring around black holes as a corona.

"This magnetic field getting tied up and then snapping close to the black hole heats everything around it and produces these high energy electrons that then go on to produce the X-rays," Wilkins said.

While studying the X-ray flares, Wilkins spotted smaller flashes.

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