Scientists Discovered Black Hole with Mysterious Brightness

Scientists discovered a black hole in a galactic neighbor with an incredible brightness. They were amazed to see that black holes have a capacity to release two times brighter than what they previously thought.

Jifeng Liu, lead author of the study from Beijing's Chinese Academy of Sciences told Space.com, "Our work shows, based on our conclusion of a stellar mass black hole, that our understanding of the black hole radiation mechanism is incomplete and needs revision."

The team of astronomers used Hawaii's Gemini Observatory and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. They focused their study on the system "ultra-luminous X-ray source," shortly known as ULX-1. It is an orbiting system in the Pinwheel Galaxy composed of a black hole and an accompanying star.

The ULX-1, which is about 22 million light years away from Earth, produces extraordinary levels of high-powered X-ray light that are discharged by substances which are trailing in circles down the cavity of the black hole.

According to the researchers, its brightness seemed impossible but the evidence they have gathered will push them to debunk their earlier theories about black holes and how they emit energy.

Previously astronomers thought that the system harbors a mid-sized black hole which could contain about 100 to 1,000 times the size of the sun. The study however does not support this and imply that it is only small.

The study revealed through spectroscopic analysis that the star of the ULX-1 could be classified as a Wolf-Rayet star, the kind of stars that have huge mass and high temperatures. Using this data, they were able to assume the mass of the star is about 19 times of the Sun.

The researchers concluded that the ULX-1 is a stellar black hole not a mid-sized one. However, they are still uncertain on how it was able to radiate an extremely luminous light. One of the possible explanations is the star's charged specks that are getting eaten up by the black hole.

The study was published in the Nov. 28 issue of Nature.

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