Kippwinkel turns theses upside down

Stellar black holes like MAXI J1820 + 070 originate from the stars with a large mass after passing the supernova phase. Then the nuclear power supply is depleted and the interior of the star collapses on itself. Even light cannot escape the gravity of a black hole.

The mass of MAXI J1820 + 070 is eight times the mass of our Sun, writes «Science». It is in a dual system with a smaller star. It shreds matter from this, which accumulates in a rotating disk around the black hole.

Part of it will fall into the black hole, and the other part will fall deflected by magnetic fields. It then blasts out into space in two bundles grouped along the black hole’s rotation axis.

An international team of researchers from the University of Turku in Finland has now been able to determine the position of the rotating disk of matter from MAXI J1820 + 070. They compare the position of the orbital plane of the binary system with previous measurements of the direction of rays of collected matter, called planes.

Since the jets are emitted from the poles of the black hole, they should be approximately perpendicular to the plane of the orbit. This is not the case now. This large tilt angle has not been observed in a black hole before. It’s over 40 degrees here.

So far astronomy has assumed that the axis is slightly tilted at most. According to astronomer Guri Potanin, a black hole could have a much larger mass assuming a larger angle of inclination.