The black hole spews a stream of matter 10,000 times more powerful than the Sun

To make the measurements, the international research team used high-resolution radio image data collected over 18 years from the SKA radio telescope network. In addition to power, they also determined the impressive speed of the jets, reaching about 571 million km/h, about half the speed of light. New research, led by expert Steve Prabu from Oxford University, published in the journal Nature Astronomy this month.

Independent said that the focus of the research is Cygnus Cygnus X-1, located 7,200 light years from Earth, is one of the brightest X-ray sources in the sky.

Discovered about 60 years ago, this is the first black hole that scientists have confirmed. The black hole and the star that supplies it with matter are only 48 million km apart, about 20% of the distance between Earth and the Sun.

However, not all matter goes into a black hole. Some of it is directed to the poles of the black hole and then ejected as a jet stream. Prabu describes the motion of the jets in the sequence of images from SKA as “dancing” as they are pushed off in many different directions. Prabu and his colleagues later determined that stellar winds impacted them, creating this “dance”.

New research helps experts better understand the energy that the stream of matter from the black hole releases into the surrounding environment. “An important finding from the study is that about 10% of the energy released when matter falls into a black hole is carried away by the jet. Scientists often assume this in large-scale simulation models of the universe, but it has been difficult to confirm with observations so far,” Prabu told Space.

The new research also provides scientists with a method to measure the energy of matter ejected from other black holes, including the supermassive type located at the center of large galaxies with millions or billions of times the mass of the Sun.

Studying the flow of matter from black holes is essential to understanding the evolution of galaxies. According to Interesting Engineeringthe flow of matter is one of the “architects” of the universe. They pump energy into the gas between stars and prevent new stars from forming too quickly, thereby regulating the growth of entire galaxies.