The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) discovered a monster black hole that is spinning very fast. The speed of the spins of black holes helps scientists' further learn how this region in space grows over time.
Black holes are just characterized by their mass and spin. While getting their mass is just a simple task, getting details of their spin is not. NASA scientists has spent many years finding ways to measure spins of black holes billions of light-years away just to determine how they grow over time.
By using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's (ESA's) XMM-Newton, researchers led by Rubens Reis of the University of Michigan were able to determine the spin of a monster black hole located 6 billion light years away from Earth.
During their observation, they found an extremely bright quasar, called RX J1131-1231, which was believed to have formed from the surrounding gas the black hole has pulled into it as it spun. And because of the unanticipated alignment, which acted as a gravitational lens that magnified the light from the quasar, the researchers were able to get a better vision and further study the spin of the monster black hole.
"Because of this gravitational lens, we were able to get very detailed information on the X-ray spectrum -- that is, the amount of X-rays seen at different energies -- from RX J1131," said co-author Mark Reynolds in a press release. "This in turn allowed us to get a very accurate value for how fast the black hole is spinning."
Measurement of the spin of far-flung black holes gives away vital information about how they get bigger and how they are formed.
As explained by the researchers, black holes that spin rapidly were formed through collisions and mergers, which amassed material in a stable disk. Black holes that spin slowly, on the other hand, were formed through several small accretion episodes, which amassed materials from different directions.
This breakthrough in the study of black holes should make studies about its evolution and its host galaxy achievable. Furthermore, it serves as a major step in assembling a sample of distant monster black holes with current X-ray observatories.
Further details of this discovery can be read on the March 5 issue of the journal, Nature.
