Space telescopes spot light 'echoing' from behind black hole for the first time

[Admin]

For the first time ever, scientists have seen the light "echoing" from behind a black hole.

Space telescopes spot light 'echoing' from behind black hole for the first time : Read more

 

[rod]

Interesting report. The reference paper link indicates the SMBH is about 30 million solar masses, and states "We note, however, that the appearance of such narrow X-ray re-emergence peaks requires the duration of the flare that illuminates the disk to be shorter than the timescale of the total response from the disk. The total duration of the flare is 10 ks. The model requires that the disk only respond to the first part of the flare, before 4,500 s, for the narrow peaks to appear at 6,800 s without being smeared out." Article Light bending and X-ray echoes from behind a supermassive black hole

The space.com report indicates the BH is about 800 million light years distance. 30 million SMBH diameter is about 1.185 au size. Light time across the diameter of the SMBH is about 591 seconds. The SMBH diameter to resolve using a telescope, angular resolution about 4.83 x 10^-6 mas needed 5000 seconds light time is about 10 au size or diameter.

 

[Catastrophe]

First time gravitational lensing around a black hole? Really, or am I misunderstanding something?

Cat

 

[rod]

First time gravitational lensing around a black hole? Really, or am I misunderstanding something?

Cat

Cat, interesting point in your post. I am familiar with lensing from large galaxy clusters. BH and SMBH I have not read about doing this. One point I make here. Their angular sizes based upon diameters measured in au will be very tiny in the sky, especially if the BHs exist at millions of light years distance from Earth. This may be part of the issue with seeing light echoes and lensing around SMBH like this article reports on.

 

[Catastrophe]

Rod, good point!

Cat

 

[sam85geo]

@ Cat and Rod. Thanks for the insights. At this rate, perhaps one day I'll be able to "play" with you Big Boys in the Big Boy Sandbox.

 

[Helio]

An x-ray level event suggests an extremely bright blast, combined with lensing likely makes it much brighter. The echo will be modeled as reflectance off an ellipsoid, assuming a spherical shell.

It’s ironic that we are seeing light from the “dark side” of a black hole, perhaps doubly ironic.

 

[Helio]

First time gravitational lensing around a black hole? Really, or am I misunderstanding something?

Probably only a first for an echo.