After conducting observations for twenty years, an astrophysicist informed Fox News that a supermassive black hole located at the core of a nearby galaxy has been discovered to be spinning, providing further support for Albert Einstein’s theories of general relativity. According to NASA, a black hole is an area in space where gravity is incredibly strong, to the point that even light cannot escape its grasp. By combining images from different observatories around the world, scientists were able to detect movement in the black hole’s jet – streams of particles emanating from its center – confirming that it possesses angular momentum, as detailed in a study published in the journal Nature on September 27. Kazuhiro Hada, an astrophysicist and co-author of the study from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, explained that the question of whether this black hole was spinning or not had been a key concern for scientists after successfully imaging it using the Event Horizon Telescope. Hada stated, “Now anticipation has turned into certainty. This monster black hole is indeed spinning.”
The supermassive black hole in question is situated around 55 million light-years away in the heart of the nearby galaxy Messier 87, also known as M87. Scientists determined that the black hole’s jet follows a predictable 11-year cycle, enabling them to infer its rotational motion over time. Wystan Benbow, an astrophysicist affiliated with the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, emphasized the significance of this finding, stating, “The only two properties that astrophysical black holes possess are mass and spin, and spin is notoriously challenging to measure. This discovery gives us further, independent evidence that the black hole in M87 is spinning.” Furthermore, he added that confirming the existence of spinning supermassive black holes using a novel technique strengthens various important theories. NASA explains that the black hole in M87 is a staggering 5.4 billion times more massive than our sun and was the first black hole ever photographed.
Prior to this groundbreaking discovery, scientists only had indirect indications of the existence of spinning black holes, but now there is conclusive evidence of their rotational motion. Igor Chilingaryan, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, highlighted the significance of this revelation, noting that it confirms the viability of the “Penrose process,” a mechanism that enables the extraction of energy from spinning black holes. Chilingaryan stated, “There is a mechanism called the ‘Penrose process’ that allows one to extract energy from a spinning black hole – and now we know that it can actually happen in the Universe and not just on paper.”
Astrophysicist Benbow points out that black holes are ubiquitous, with supermassive ones residing at the cores of nearly every galaxy. He further affirmed that this recent discovery will provide insights into the co-evolution of black holes and their host galaxies, as well as shed light on the large-scale structure of our universe. He concludes, “In any case, this is an important milestone.”
[h2]Before this discovery, scientists only had some “circumstantial evidence for spinning black holes,” but now there is “smoking gun evidence for the black hole spin,” Igor Chilingaryan, an astronomer at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Fox News in an email. “There is a mechanism called the ‘Penrose process’ that allows one to extract energy from a spinning black hole – and now we know that it can in fact work in the Universe and not just on paper,” Chilingaryan continued. Black holes are “everywhere,” and supermassive ones are at the center of almost every galaxy, Benbow told Fox News. The recent discovery “will also give us insight into how black holes and their host galaxies co-evolve and how our universe came to have the large-scale structure that it does today,” he added. “In any case, this is an important milestone.”
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