Astronomers just got a deep peek at a black hole
Using a technique akin to echolocation, scientists were able to map the region around a distant black hole’s event horizon in unprecedented detail.
In an enormous effort that stunned the world, scientists last year unveiled the first direct picture of a black hole, allowing humans to see what exists at the cusp of the monster’s maw. Now, astronomers have used a different technique involving x-ray “echoes” to peer even closer at one of these gravitational behemoths.
The black hole coming into focus is parked in the middle of a galaxy called IRAS 13224-3809, which sits about a billion light-years away. The supermassive object is surrounded by a swirling disk of million-degree matter and is sheathed by an x-ray corona with a temperature exceeding a billion degrees. By charting how those x-rays behave, scientists created an extremely detailed map of the region
