According to Space, NASA’s small-sized spacecraft, IXPE, functions as an ultra-sensitive X-ray probe, which has discovered the aforementioned black hole and its explosive activity.
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Image: NASA
It is the black hole Markarian 421, a supermassive black hole often referred to as the “monster black hole”, hiding in the Ursa Major constellation. The direction of the high-energy stream is directly towards Earth, but there is no need to worry as our planet is located about 400 million light-years away from the “monster”, too far for this beam to reach.
It forms a plazar, which can be understood as a small quasar, appearing bright like a star when viewed from Earth but not actually a star.
It also provides us with a rare opportunity to detect black holes since every black hole, if not consuming and shooting out excess matter everywhere, would be completely dark. This chilling discovery is also expected to reveal extreme cosmic phenomena behind the black hole’s meals.
Around Markarian 421, there is a massive accretion disk, where the black hole is regularly fed.
However, the black hole cannot devour everything. Things it cannot swallow will accumulate and then be ejected as a recoil stream – a high-energy beam shooting out at speeds comparable to the speed of light.
The energy stream heading towards Earth also exhibits a peculiar twisted structure similar to a DNA strand.
For non-specialized observers, IXPE has unveiled more mysteries about the shining objects we see in the night sky: The distant stars are not always stars. They can be planets, super novae, or disguised “monsters” like Markarian 421.