Some black holes have a corona, or a ring of bright light that forms around a black hole as material falls into it and becomes heated to extreme temperatures. “Fifty years ago, when astrophysicists starting speculating about how the magnetic field might behave close to a black hole, they had no idea that one day we might have the techniques to observe this directly and see Einstein’s general theory of relativity in action,” said Roger Blandford, study coauthor and the Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and professor of physics at Stanford University, in a statement.Įinstein’s theory, or the idea that gravity is matter warping space-time, has persisted for a hundred years as new astronomical discoveries have been made. The study published last Wednesday in the journal Nature. X-ray flares have been seen from the far side of a black hole for the first time, as depicted in this rendering. “The reason we can see that is because that black hole is warping space, bending light and twisting magnetic fields around itself,” he said. However, the black hole’s strange nature actually made the observation possible. “Any light that goes into that black hole doesn’t come out, so we shouldn’t be able to see anything that’s behind the black hole,” said Wilkins, study author and research scientist at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, in a statement. Sometimes, this super-heated material is hurled out into space by rapid jets – including X-rays and gamma rays.īut Wilkins noticed smaller flashes of X-rays that occurred later and were different colors – and they were coming from the far side of the black hole. These bright light flares are not unusual because although light can’t escape a black hole, the enormous gravity around it can heat up material to millions of degrees. Stanford University astrophysicist Dan Wilkins and his colleagues observed X-rays that were released by a supermassive black hole located at the center of a galaxy that is 800 million light-years from Earth. CMEs, in particular, can cause geomagnetic storms that can disable satellites and even power grids.It’s a light show in space unlike any other.įor the first time, scientists have detected light from behind a black hole, and it fulfills a prediction rooted in Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. NASA sent out SDO to monitor the sun in order to better understand its electromagnetic system and solar phenomena like flares and coronal mass ejections. That's because SDO takes images from various distances as it orbits the Earth. Besides the undulating plasma, you might also notice that the sun gets bigger and smaller ever so slightly in the video.
Photos taken in that wavelength shows parts of the corona - the aura of plasma that surrounds the sun - burning at around 1,079,540 degrees F. Since each frame represents two hours and the photos were taken in extreme ultraviolet range, you can clearly see the sun's corona dancing and undulating throughout the video.Įxtreme ultraviolet is commonly used in solar imaging. The ultraHD video below the fold is a timelapse that stitches together images the spacecraft captured during that sixth year, from January 1st, 2015 to January 28th, 2016. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was only designed to fly for five years, but it has celebrated six years of 24/7 solar observation on February 11th.
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