You don’t have to be a science expert to know that black holes usually pull things in instead of spitting them out. But NASA has just found something very strange near the Markarian 335 supermassive black hole.
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and another NASA satellite telescope saw the corona of a supermassive black hole being “launched” away from the hole. Then there was a huge burst of X-ray energy. So, what exactly did happen? This is what scientists are trying to figure out right now.
Dan Wilkins of Saint Mary’s University said, “This is the first time we’ve been able to link the launch of the corona to a flare.” “This will help us figure out how some of the brightest things in the universe are powered by supermassive black holes.”
Fiona Harrison, who is in charge of NuSTAR, said that the energy source is a “mystery,” but that being able to record the event should give some clues about the size and shape of the black hole and (hopefully) new information about how black holes work. We’re lucky that this black hole is still 324 million light-years away.
So, no matter what weird things it does, they shouldn’t affect our little part of the universe.
