Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
A black hole 55 million light-years away, M87*, emitted a gamma-ray flare during the 2018 Event Horizon Telescope campaign, a first in over a decade.
The gamma-ray flare, releasing immense high-energy radiation, dwarfed the black hole itself, extending tens of millions of times beyond its event horizon.
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The violent flare, covering an area 170 times the Sun-Earth distance, lasted for three Earth days, providing a rare window into black hole dynamics.
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Scientists attribute the flare to interactions between material consumed by the black hole and its magnetic field, a process still shrouded in mystery.
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The flare altered the ring structure of M87*, suggesting a complex relationship between the black hole’s event horizon and such high-energy outbursts.
Credit: NASA
Nagoya City University’s Kazuhiro Hada highlighted the unpredictability of these flares, which are infamously difficult to observe in specific wavelengths.
Credit: NASA
The flare region showed varying structures across wavelengths, underscoring the complexity of supermassive black hole activity, according to Daniel Mazin.
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Sera Markoff of the University of Amsterdam noted that particle acceleration in black hole jets remains a mystery, but this event offers a chance to test theories.
Credit: seramarkoff.com
The study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, combines imaging near the event horizon with gamma-ray observations to advance understanding of cosmic phenomena.
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