When a massive star dies in a violent supernova, it forms probably the strangest object in the universe: a black hole. However, it seems that there are still inconsistencies with this story, As a publication now appeared in the journal «Science» appears.
A group of astronomers led by Guri Potanin of the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm measured a sample about 10,000 light-years from Earth that does not behave as one would expect has accepted. far. So the new observation raises questions about the current understanding of the formation of black holes, Write Ferdinando Patate and Michela Mapelli in an accompanying review.
Black holes do not have a surface like a planet or star, but rather a region where matter collapsed on itself and condensed into an extremely small volume. But like all other celestial bodies, black holes also rotate on their axis; So it can be distinguished mainly by two parameters: mass and rotational speed. Sometimes gravitational monsters – such as planets and stars – are part of a formation of several bodies bound together by gravitational attraction.
In our solar system, for example, the planets move around the central star, or in a double star system, two stars orbit each other. Likewise, the observed object has a moving partnership with a star. This constellation is one of those X-ray binaries, in which one star usually orbits around a more compact star – hence the name. The common denominator between these systems is that a more massive object pulls material from its lighter companion. This results in a so-called accretion disk of matter that surrounds the star or black hole and emits X-rays.
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