They are nature's very own Death Star beams - ultra-powerful jets of energy that shoot out from the vicinity of black holes like deadly rays from the Star Wars super-weapon.
Now a team of scientists led by the University of Southampton has moved a step closer to understanding these mysterious cosmic phenomena - known as relativistic jets - by measuring how quickly they 'switch on' and start shining brightly once they are launched.
How these jets form is still a puzzle. One theory suggests that they develop within the 'accretion disc' - the matter sucked into the orbit of a growing black hole. Extreme gravity within the disc twists and stretches magnetic fields, squeezing hot, magnetised disc material called plasma until it erupts in the form of oppositely directed magnetic pillars along the black hole's rotational axis.
Plasma travels along these focused jets and gains tremendous speed, shooting across vast stretches of space. At some point, the plasma begins to shine brightly, but how and where this occurs in the jet has been debated by scientists.
In a new study published today in Nature Astronomy, an international team of scientists led by Dr Poshak Gandhi show how they used precise multi-wavelength observations of a binary system called V404 Cygni - consisting of a star and a black hole closely orbiting each other, with the black hole feeding off matter from the star that falls through the disc - to throw light on this hotly debated phenomenon.
V404 Cygni is located about 7,800 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus, and weighs as much as about nine of our Suns put together. Dr Gandhi and his collaborators captured the data in June 2015, when V404 Cygni was observed radiating one of the brightest 'outbursts' of light from a black hole ever seen - bright enough to be visible to small telescopes used by amateur astronomers, and energetic enough to tear apart an Earth-like planet if properly focused.
Using telescopes on Earth and in space observing at exactly the same time, they captured a 0.1-second delay between X-ray flares emitted from near the black hole, where the jet forms, and the appearance of visible light flashes, marking the moment when accelerated jet plasma begins to shine.
This 'blink of an eye' delay was calculated to represent a maximum distance of 19,000 miles (30,000 km), impossible to resolve at the distance of V404 with any current telescope.
Dr Gandhi, of the University of Southampton, said: "Scientists have been observing jets for decades, but are far from understanding how nature creates these mind-bogglingly vast and energetic structures.
"Now, for the first time, we have captured the time delay between the appearance of X-rays and the appearance of optical light in a stellar-mass black hole at the moment jet plasma is activated. This lays to rest the controversy regarding the origin of the optical flashes, and also gives us a critical distance over which jet plasma must have been strongly accelerated to speeds approaching that of light."
In Star Wars terms, the key measurement of this study can roughly be likened to measuring the distance between the surface of the Death Star, where multiple rays of light shoot out, and the point where they converge into a single bright beam.
"But the physics of black hole jets has nothing to do with lasers or the fictional Kyber crystals that power the Death Star. Nature has found other ways to power jets," said Dr Gandhi. "Gravity and magnetic fields play the key roles here, and this is the mechanism we are trying to unravel."
The study also creates a link between V404 Cygni and supermassive black holes, which lie at the centre of massive galaxies and which weigh billions of times more than stellar-mass black holes. Similar jet physics may apply to all black holes.
Dr Gandhi said: "This is an exciting and important discovery which can be fed back into theory about relativistic jets, and contributes to our ever-growing understanding of black holes."
The X-ray emission, representing the accretion disc 'feeding' the jet at its base, was captured from Earth orbit by NASA's NuSTAR telescope, while the moment the jet became visible as optical light was caught by the ULTRACAM high-speed camera, mounted on the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma, in the Canary Islands.
Professor Vik Dhillon, of the University of Sheffield, the principal investigator behind ULTRACAM, commented: "This discovery was made possible thanks to our camera gathering 28 frames per second. It demonstrates the untapped potential of studying astrophysical phenomena at high speeds."
At the same time, radio waves from the extended portions of the jet plasma were observed by a team of Professor Rob Fender, of the University of Oxford, using the AMI-LA radio telescope, in Cambridge, UK.
Professor Fender said: "These observations are another major step towards understanding exactly how relativistic jets are formed by black holes. Radio detections come from the outer jet and are the key unambiguous indicator of ongoing jet activity. The optical, X-rays and radio were also crucial for that discovery."
Explore further:
Extreme jet ejections from the black hole X-ray binary V404 Cygni
More information:
P. Gandhi et al, An elevation of 0.1 light-seconds for the optical jet base in an accreting Galactic black hole system, Nature Astronomy (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-017-0273-3, https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09838
Chris_Reeve
This is stated very factually, but it takes some effort to completely ignore the fact that the electrical force is considerably stronger than the gravitational.
Benni
OK, to get it started: Schneibo, again explain to us that black hole math whereby Infinite Gravity & Infinite Density can exist on the surface of a Finite Stellar Mass. And please, don't put up that silly algebra you think are Differential Equations.
barakn
It takes some effort to completely ignore the fact that unlike gravity, electromagnetic forces are subject to charge screening whereby nearby opposite charges effectively cancel out the charge as seen by a third, further object.
Ojorf
r=(2MG)/(c^2)
Try it, take the mass of the earth as an example (M) , make the radius 8mm, then 9mm, then 10mm see what G works out as.
Think about the implications in terms of GR.
Get it?
bschott
It takes complete ignorance to post this answer....charge screening in a hot plasma, well done. It also takes complete and utter stupidity to state that " Extreme gravity within the disc twists and stretches magnetic fields"...
Gravity now has an effect on non material forces...as in no matter present....as in a gravitational field "pulls" on a magnetic one. I swear these guys all discovered crack at the same time to posit theories this completely devoid of physics...period. Imagine how fried your brain has to be to blindly follow it....Any insights on that Baraknjorf?
Chris_Reeve
The idea is being pitched in the article as though it's a fact, but to accept it as proposed requires that a person is fully asleep. There are obviously two different ways to explain what we see -- the second, completely unmentioned possibility being that these VERY LONG filaments which they admit to exhibit the stronger force (EM) is spinning the "black hole".
To just ignore all of that and focus upon me is an invitation for people to please stop thinking and instead think of the whole thing as a sort of soap opera.
Chris_Reeve
"Although both the gravitational and electrical force obey an inverse square law, their size differs enormously. For the proton-electron pair which comprises the hydrogen atom, the electrical force is about 10^39 or one thousand million million million million million million times as strong as the gravitational force ... So we can nearly always neglect gravitational effects in the presence of electrical forces."
Also, as most here probably already know, the proton has a mass that is 1836 times that of the electron -- so if gravity has any effect at all in this VERY long filament, one has to imagine that the protons and electrons are going to separate.
No?
Molecular hydrogen
Da Schneib
This isn't theory, fools. We saw this. There is nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide.
Chris_Reeve
"Science is not a direct means for reaching the truth. Science works with hypotheses rather than with truths. This fact, although recognized, is usually forgotten. It gives rise to the creation of certain key groups within science which think that their hypotheses are indubitably solid truths, and think that the hypotheses of other minority groups are just extravagant or crackpot ideas ...
all through history, and even now, there have been many instances of discussion about how to interpret aspects of nature, with various possible options without a clear answer, in which a group of scientists have opted to claim their position is the good or orthodox one while other positions are heresies."
Chris_Reeve
- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP meeting
Chris_Reeve
- A Theologico-Political Treatise, 1670 (Pub Anon.), Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677)
bschott
We did not see any gravitational field twisting and stretching a magnetic one...anywhere...ever. That actually is a theory fool, never witnessed...there is only nowhere to run if you think it is actually physics. And yes, you should probably try to find somewhere to hide because reality is going to frighten you.
Chris_Reeve
Chris_Reeve
434a
I didn't read that;
It's saying the plasma, that is the source of the EM field, is twisted by the gravitational field, ergo the EM field becomes twisted.
I really don't understand the point of misrepresenting something that is plainly there for everyone to read.
bschott
I used to believe this, tried to live by it....then I spent enough time here. Not one of the bunch will attempt to address the concept of gravitationally influencing a magnetic field...how the hell can you? Every single article or paper written about BH's has to say something completely ridiculous from a physics standpoint that cannot be addressed using physics as we know it. The only out for supporters is to direct the conversation away from said buffoonery via any means they can. Ojorf posts a non relevant equation to the post he was replying to and Schneib comes in with his opinion about people and a statement so inaccurate it's laughable. You can pretend not to read it...or make fun of it, as someone who doesn't support MS theories, I don't play pretend.
bschott
It is the first line of what you quoted....what the hell is wrong with you?
No it does not say that, it flat out said and you also posted it, that gravity effects the magnetic fields which results in:
You can't re-arrange what was said...nice try.
So....you need to reinterpret scientific text to what it really means in order to understand it...gotcha. Now I see why the mainstream appear so freaking confused about pretty much everything...they never actually mean what they write and one of the followers has to translate it.
Not even a nice try.
Benni
Benni
Hey Chris, when there is no science supporting the Schneibo & Ojo sides of the BH issue, the only thing they have left is to focus on the person rebutting their perpetual motion math.
Hell's bells man, look at Ojo, reaching all the way back to 19th century science with an irrelevant equation to produce a math model for the existence of a BH. He & Schneibo have finally given up trying to make us believe that the basis for BHs are found in GR, so they're trying to put over the 19th century math model instead.
jonesdave
What scientific text? The above is an interpretation of a paper. Read the paper and find within it where is says that the MF is squeezed by gravity. You won't. 'Science' by press release, as per usual. Does Thornhill present courses on that? If you read the paper, you will find that it references the following paper for the mechanism:
Magnetohydrodynamic Production of Relativistic Jets (2001) (cited 405 times)
Meier, D.L. et al
http://user.astro...jets.pdf
This is why EU is a constant failure; they never read the papers, and they never reply to the papers. You can't blame people for ignoring something that doesn't exist.
Chris_Reeve
The paper is presenting an ad hoc extension of a worldview which was abandoned by its creator and even argued against in his 1970 Nobel acceptance speech (for this very creation). I'm familiar with the situation sufficient to understand that there is more than one option available for interpreting the observations -- and the historical pattern is to pretend as though the framework which is being taught in the universities is the only valid approach.
The irony is that what is being taught in the universities must IN SOME MANNER be incorrect. You already know that because there is no TOE. So, the anti-pattern here is that you dismiss alternatives without really understanding where the mistake is in the textbook theory.
jonesdave
And the ONLY way of challenging those findings is to do so within the scientific literature. As any scientist worth his salt would do, if he thought he saw an error, or misinterpretation. By failing to do this, EU is implicitly backing the standard model :)
bschott
I have watched these jets produced in a plasma chamber vegetable Jones. There was no BH in there with it. A 2001 paper referencing theoretical objects (using the word "likely") is your proof of validity??? And you called Thornhill dim...LMAO!
Regardless Vegetable, the poster I was responding to actually tried to re-arrange the wording of the article in an attempt to validate what was said.
But then we have to listen to useless tools who say really stupid things because they believe said things do exist...this is why mainstream and supporters are a constant failure, they reference papers about theories and then think a theory that isn't proven proves another one valid. After a conversation with Thornhill you'd be in the fetal position sucking your thumb
bschott
Clearly not, being as we witness several challenges to what is said here every day. Is your perspective so narrow as to think only yours exists? Based on your posts that is a clear "yes". Go back to the crisper with your like minded vegetables and let time do what it does to vegetables. The theories you support have mostly rotted already...can't wait til you join them.
Chris_Reeve
And the obvious mistake you make here is in assuming that the peer reviewers are more fair than yourself. All we have to do is to observe your own behaviors to appreciate the larger context.
Chris_Reeve
- Ted Nield, Geoscientist 17.8 August 2007
bschott
So...when we read an article here it is your contention that it inaccurately depicts what is presented in the papers...and thus debating what an article here says is pointless. (actually it is at this point here in the age of lost physics) We've had that one thrown out numerous times as a defense of the "science" as well..."the physorg writer got it wrong"...
Do you have a wheel you spin with excuses on it or something? Where ever it stops, that's what we'll go with.....
Chris_Reeve
- Paul C. Lauterbur, winner of the Nobel Prize for medicine, whose seminal paper on magnetic resonance imaging was originally rejected by Nature
Captain Stumpy
consider the following by @bschitthead a literate person knows the following:
A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can be repeatedly tested, in accordance with the scientific method, using a predefined protocol of observation and experiment. Established scientific theories have withstood rigorous scrutiny and embody scientific knowledge
https://www.nap.e...pter/2#2
https://plato.sta...heories/
whereas the pseudoscience crowd assumes a completely separate definition out of ignorance
'nuff said?
thank you for demonstrating your lack of science literacy yet again
Chris_Reeve
C. E. R. Bruce, Electric Fields in Space, Penguin Science Survey, 1968, p.170
"Perhaps in no scientific discipline other than cosmology have so many theories got by on so little positive evidence; imagination has had free reign, often at the expense of common sense."
bschott
The line in dispute:
Awaiting anything that supports this theory.....as per your definition of "theory".
In order to understand the nature of stupidity, one must examine pretty much everything posted by Captain Stumpy. On the surface it may appear he has a clue, but examining his statements refutes any such notion.
jonesdave
Seriously? Lol. This is the cretin who thinks Velikovsky was right! Who thinks comets are rocks! That electric discharges cause the jets! That solar wind H+ will combine with non-existent O- to form OH! And that instruments will confuse this with H2O! Who thinks that gravity is an electromagnetic effect! Hint: change the charge on one body orbiting another, and see what happens. Clue: it's been done, and nothing happens. Who thinks the Sun is powered by an invisible Z-pinch just 1 AU away!
I've told you, the bloke is a cretin. And a fraud. That's why nobody takes him seriously (or, indeed, has ever heard of him), and why he attracts such scientifically illiterate followers. Anybody that takes Velikovsky seriously needs their head read. Whatever that crap is, it isn't science. And he isn't a scientist.
jonesdave
Please point out in the paper where that is stated.
Chris_Reeve
In fact, it is instead surprising that somebody would even raise the topic of methodology in the midst of any discussion of cosmology or astrophysics -- which cannot usually claim to follow the scientific method in the manner of more traditional domains.
We should rightly ask, by his own definition, if cosmology is a pseudoscience since it routinely accepts claims without any experimental aspect at all.
jonesdave
Which is obviously nonsense, otherwise PC and the Alfven-Klein model would be accepted. They aren't, due to evidence showing them to be inconsistent with observation.
bschott
jonesdave
A press release is just that. Somebody, who may have no qualifications in the relevant area, presents a precis of the paper. It is pointless criticising based on a press release. You absolutely have to read the paper. Otherwise it's just so much pointless noise. Pointless anyway, unless you address the paper within the scientific literature. Because nobody who matters is actually listening.
bschott
You're the one who says it isn't, the article we all read said the above...you go pull the part of the paper out that this refers to and show us why it was presented incorrectly. We aren't defending it numbnuts...you are.
jonesdave
http://www.thunde...omet.pdf
Is the Wallace Thornhill who wrote that junk the same one that you are talking about? He said all those things I attributed to him. He's a loon.
Captain Stumpy
LMFAO stopped there because you don't know how science works, therefore you can't comprehend how one can build accurate experimental based models and then extrapolate data
until you actually learn what science is, you should stop posting about how science is wrong about anything
it makes you look stupider than bschitthead
.
]@bschitthead
so, you're saying that your own lack of literacy is ok?
if you were even semi-scientifically literate you would not only know how to classify evidence, but you would know how to utilise the lexicon for accurate representation or speech
given you you're obviously not scientifically literate, one can then dismiss your comments as argument from ignorance
jonesdave
Read the frigging paper. It isn't in there. How can I point out something which doesn't exist? Jesus H. Christ, it's on Arxiv. Read it.
dnatwork
So the other side says, not very clearly I'm afraid, "You can't arbitrarily change the radius in a formula and call that proof. Proof would be if you found a real object actually having its radius changed by some physical process in the real world, and if your math and only your math perfectly explained that phenomenon."
Then everybody calls each other names. Yay.
The fundamental problem between you guys (and yes, I'm sure every one of you is a guy; women are different when they're vicious) is you don't want to entertain new ideas. Obviously one side is more right than the other, but you're both necessarily wrong about a lot of things. Have some humility, open your ears, and drop the slurs.
I'm on the side of real world data and "all other options have been disproved." Nobody's there yet.
Captain Stumpy
wrong
you are assuming that the article is equivalent to the study
this is due to your inability to comprehend what constitutes science, as demonstrated above multiple times, like the following the article and study also used the words "jet" and the study used the term "emission from the jet", but no one here assumed there was a 747 involved...
this is where science literacy comes in: you can't assume that colloquial terminology applies (as in: theory)
nor can you assume that the article written by an author is factually representative of the study
articles are not equivalent to studies
ever
the failing here is yours, not ours
you can learn more here: https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
Chris_Reeve
It's important to note that the original suggestion came from Immanuel Velikovsky, who in turn pointed to a book which mentioned it (not sure which book that is though) -- and this information was actually received by Wal Thornhill while he was still working for IBM. He goes through the story in his presentations.
jonesdave
Well that figures!!!! Like I said, anybody that takes that crap seriously is in urgent need of a lobotomy.
Benni
......and this is not a recent occurrence either. After Einstein wrote his 1936-38 paper on the non-existence of Gravitational Waves, the Physical Review soundly trounced him specifically for that viewpoint.
Benni
.....in addition to the fact that pop-sci cosmology routinely rejects the proven Laws of Thermodynamics as the modus operandi for energy distribution throughout the Universe.
Just try to talk to any of the pop-sci culture who live in the Commentary here & you can never get them to explain in a discernible fashion why Dark Energy IS NOT a violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, ENTROPY, except that Schneibo has been here to posit the concept that "entropy is consumable" (whatever that means).
dnatwork
There was an article here, maybe last week, positing that inflation was due to the formation of knots in 3D spacetime as the universe cooled. It was all about topology; they said you can only have knots in three dimensions, among other things.
Anyway, that reduced inflation to the expenditure of potential energy in the system, and it put a starting point and an endpoint on it. So it didn't necessarily violate thermodynamics, which is nice.
bschott
I didn't say to point out where it didn't say it there looney tunes, I asked you to point out the part of the paper that the statement was supposed to represent, being as you are the one saying that the paper doesn't say what the article does. I don't need to read a peer reviewed pile of theoretical excrement so I can decipher what fairy tale was meant vs. the translation in the article above...the paper is about how a non existent object creates an observed phenomenon...IOW...not worth anyones time except those interested in furthering their understanding of fantasies. As to whatever Stump said....I am sure it is as insightful as everything else he has to say here. That ignore feature is awesome, never tried it before....bet his parents wish they had it too.
Benni
I saw that. Couldn't quite figure out how the knots were supposed to work. I thought the author was alluding to a concept that density of mass throughout the Universe is not precisely EVENLY distributed as would be expected by the entropic process of Conservation of Energy & the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
Da Schneib
The magnetic field extends upward and downward from the disk parallel to the axis, because magnetism acts orthogonally to electric current, and the ionized matter in the disk acts parallel to its axis. Magnetism acts at the speed of light. The disk is spinning, so the magnetic field's lines of equipotential flow out from the disk in a helix. The disk is moving inward because the black hole sucks at the disk, and the helix of magnetic equipotential lines compresses toward the axis of the disk.
I think it's a pretty good conjecture that the magnetic field from the accretion disk is "...[twisted and stretched] magnetic fields, squeezing hot, magnetised disc material called plasma until it erupts in the form of oppositely directed magnetic pillars along the black hole's rotational axis."
[contd]
Da Schneib
Note however that without any evidence other than theory to support it, this remains a conjecture until we can propose a testable hypothesis. The simple fact of the matter is that these "jets" emerge from black holes, and we're still figuring out why.
This observation (note, not a theory, not even a hypothesis, the former requires a fulfilled prediction and the latter some prediction that can be fulfilled, we currently don't have telescopes powerful enough to observe helical confinement of the jets by any force much less magnetism even in relatively nearby black holes) shows that there is a delay between the emission of X-rays and the emission of visible light. This in turn indicates that whatever process emits the X-rays a) happens closer to the black hole since radiation, you know, radiates, and stuff, b) causes the light pulse from the X-rays, and c) happens about half a light-second away from the X-ray emissions.
Just sayin'.
Da Schneib
That's how science is different from religion. And that's why EUdiocy is a religion, not science.
Da Schneib
That, to quote Radar O'Reilly, is all.
Benni
I'm pulling for you Chris.
jonesdave
Try that in English.
jonesdave
Shut up Benni; you are thick and irrelevant. Yes?
jonesdave
Jeez, thick, eh?
jonesdave
Da Schneib
cantdrive85
Da Schneib
Looks like the open field lines are coming out the jets. Maybe you didn't notice.
barakn
cantdrive85
Ojorf
Oh boy, Benni, you are so confused!
We are not talking about gravitational attraction between 2 bodies, just the surface gravity of a single body, which of course is dependent on density.
Do you understand now?
Da Schneib
Benni
Ojo,
Finally, after I have explained it to you so many times, it has finally gotten through to you that increasing the density of a constant mass body does not change it's gravity, that the only change is in the concentration of gravity per unit area of the mass at it's surface, a change that can never go to infinity in accordance with Einstein Field Equations in GR, but you probably still don't believe even this, right?
Schneibo doesn't believe this: