The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) reports that astronomers have revealed the contents of enigmatic black hole jets. A black hole is a large amount of matter packed into a very small area, while jets are confined beams of matter shot out at high speed from a central object (like a black hole).

“Although they have been observed for decades, we’re still not sure what they are made of, or what powers them,” noted lead author María Díaz Trigo, a European Southern Observatory astronomer, in a statement.

The astronomers analyzed the radio waves and X-rays ejected by a small black hole several times the mass of the Sun. Despite the fact that the black hole is believed to be active, the astronomers’ radio observations didn’t show any jets, and the X-ray spectrum didn’t reveal anything strange.

A few weeks later, however, the astronomers studied the black hole for a second time and noticed radio emissions complementing the arrival of these jets, and even more gratifying, lines had come into view in the X-ray spectrum — the undeniable signature of ordinary atoms — around the black hole.

According to Simone Migliari of the University of Barcelona, this discovery convinced the astronomers that the particles were being sped up to fast speeds in the jets, one aimed toward Earth, and the other one in the opposite direction.

Miller-Jones noted that astronomers have long known that jets hold electrons, “but haven’t got an overall negative charge, so there must be something positively charged in them too.”

According to astronomers, positively charged atoms are a lot heavier than the positrons they think might create the jets, and therefore the jets can cart away a lot more energy from the black hole than previously thought. However, astronomers aren’t sure whether the jets are powered by the circular motion of the spinning black hole itself, or whether they are instead put into motion from the disk of matter that encompasses the black hole.

“Our results suggest it’s more likely the disk is responsible for channeling the matter into the jets, and we are planning further observations to try and confirm this,” Miller-Jones noted.

Utilizing the X-ray data, the astronomers calculated that the jets were travelling at 66 percent of the speed of light (198,000 km/s). This is reportedly the most precise measurement to date of the jet speed from an ordinary small black hole.

The astronomers utilized the European’s Space Agency’s XMM-Newton satellite to spot X-ray emission from the black hole. The CSIRO’s Australia Compact Array also played a role.

The study’s results are published in the journal Nature.

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