![]() "Which means that, for any normal corona, the magnetic fields within that radius are what's responsible for creating a corona." "What that tells us is that, if all the action is happening within that tidal disruption radius, that means the magnetic field configuration that's supporting the corona must be within that radius," Kara said. Then debris from the star could have temporarily disrupted the black hole's magnetic field, after which it rebuilt itself as the space around the black hole settled back into a more normal state.Īnd that could be an important clue for understanding the radius within which a magnetic field controls a black hole corona. First, the star is tidally disrupted, causing the initial flare. The star is torn apart in a process called tidal disruption, screaming a flare of bright light, before getting slurped beyond the event horizon to meet its mysterious fate.Īnd if a runaway star so happened to encounter 1ES 1927+654's black hole, the events could fit the observed changes in the X-ray radiation. ![]() We know that black holes can change pretty rapidly when they capture and devour a star that ventures just a little too close. ![]() But if, as theorised, it has something to do with the black hole's magnetic fields, then the dramatic changes observed in 1ES 1927+654's black hole could have been caused by something disrupting those magnetic fields. But we also had no idea what we were dealing with no one we talked to had seen anything like this."Īstronomers are not entirely sure how black hole coronae are generated and powered. When we saw it was real, it was very exciting. This black hole would not only need to be supermassive, but completely isolated from any surrounding space material, gas, or stars as well."It was so strange that at first we thought maybe there was something wrong with the data. A person falling into a stellar-size black hole will be much closer to the black hole's center when passing through the event horizon, which results in a gravitational pull so large that they will likely immediately die as they'll be stretched into a "long, thin noodle-like shape." A person falling into a supermassive black hole, however, would safely pass through, free of noodle-like stretching, because of how far away the event horizon is from the gravity-causing center of the black hole. "Thus, someone falling into a stellar-size black hole (non-supermassive size) will get much, much closer to the black hole's center before passing the event horizon, as opposed to falling into a supermassive black hole," the two physicists write. The supermassive black hole, by way of its sheer size, has a mass that's roughly 4 million times the mass of our Sun and has an event horizon with a radius of 7.3 million miles as a result. There are two main types of black holes in the universe, according to them, and one is supermassive while the other is not. 12 Images Physicists Leo Rodriguez and Shanshan Rodriguez are both assistant professors of physics at Grinnell College and they explain how this successful trip through a black hole could happen safely in their report on The Conversation.
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