X-Rays Help Astronomers Discover 28 Cocooned Black Holes

Varieties

July 21st, 6:22am

London - Asharq Al-Awsat

This artist rendering provided by NASA shows a star being swallowed by a black hole, and emitting an X-ray flare, shown in red, in the process. (NASA via AP)

Scientists have been surprised by the discovery of 28 black holes that were uncovered by the use of X-rays, with the findings hopefully paving a way towards a better understanding of the giant anomalies. According to The Daily Star, researchers stumbled upon 28 of the massive spacial anomalies after looking at X-ray maps of space, revealing "cocooned" versions of the matter-eating singularities. The anomalies had been mistaken for distant galaxies or other types of black holes, and scientists now hope that the use of X-rays may offer a better understanding of how black holes work and how the universe was created. After using X-rays to uncover the hidden black holes, scientists suspect that many more of the space vortexes may exist and be scattered across the night sky hidden from view of the naked eye. "All 28 of the objects are supermassive black holes, billions of times the mass of our sun. And all are going through a stage of development where they shroud themselves in a dark bubble of dust and other material," the Live Science website explained. Those cocoons obscure the bright X-rays emitted by hot material swirling around their event horizons, the point of no return for infalling matter, making them seem dimmer than they really are. The Live Science report also explained that "models of black hole formation suggest there should be lots of black holes like this across the sky, but until now, scientists hadn't spotted as many as expected." This new research, based on observations of one patch of the southern sky, suggests many of them were hiding in plain sight. The study was led by Astronomer Erini Lambrides of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2402206/x-rays-help-astronomers-discover-28-cocooned-black-holes