A quasar is a black hole that has a pulsating accretion disk around it.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – The NGC 4889, a silent black hole observed by NASA is the first one of its kind to be studied by researchers. The “silence” of the gravitational phenomenon is caused by the fact that the black hole has consumed all the matter and gases in its surroundings and is now waiting patiently for more “space snacks”.
The now silent black hole observed by NASA resides in the Coma Cluster. There are roughly three hundred million light-years between the Milky Way and the Coma Cluster.
The researchers estimated that the total mass of the gravitational occurrence is of 21 billion times greater than the mass of our solar system’s Sun.
Since there are hundreds of million light-years between us and the NGC 4889, you are probably asking yourselves at this point how astronomers managed to calculate the mass of a singularity that is so far. The answer lies in the instruments from the Keck 2 Observatory and the North Gemini Telescope.
With these tools, the astronomers measured the speed with which surrounding stars were traveling. When they managed to find out the velocity of the nearby stars, they calculated the potential mass of the singularity. This was possible because the two variables are interdependent.
According to the researchers that have studied the gravitational phenomenon, the NGC 4889 was once a pulsating quasar. This means that the black hole was feeding through a process named hot accretion. When space material such as debris, dust or gas was absorbed by the singularity, it accumulated around the edges, forming something called an accretion disk.
The accretion disk was influenced by the enormous amounts of gravitational energy that originated from the black hole in the sense that it heated it up to a few million degrees while also making it spin. Because of the very high levels of temperature, the material expelled a sort of energetic and gigantic jets. The expulsions made the singularity look like it had a regular pulse. That is why it was called a pulsating quasar.
The researchers are also convinced that when the supermassive singularity was active, it emitted a thousand times more energy than the entire Milky Way.
When the galactic “treats” supply was exhausted, the pulsating, “lively” singularity became the silent black hole observed by NASA.
Since there are still very little things that our scientists know about black holes, they are not sure if it is possible for one to perish or if it’s just waiting patiently for a cloud of gas or a field of debris to bring it back to life.
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