Black holes are one of our Universe’s greatest mysteries. What are they made of? What happens after they gobble something up? However, experts now say that new measurements of a black hole’s accretion disk could begin to provide us answers.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00black holes are one of our universe's greatest mysteries what are they made of what happens
00:08after they gobble something up however experts now say that new measurements of a black hole's
00:13accretion disk could begin to provide us answers astronomers were recently able to detect near
00:17infrared light on the perimeter of a supermassive black hole in galaxy 3 zw 002 the accretion disk
00:24is the spiraling area around a black hole a place where no matter not even light may escape
00:29experts say there are two wavelengths of light that are associated with black holes coming from
00:33light moving in opposite directions some of the light is heading towards us and the other is moving
00:38away meaning there are double peaks in light wavelengths using that data they have now
00:42defined that the accretion disk of this particular black hole extends some 52 light days from the
00:47black hole itself or 9078 astronomical units from the black hole proper that means that this particular
00:53supermassive black hole's accretion disk extends 9078 times the distance of the earth to the sun
00:59for reference pluto is only 40 astronomical units away from the center of the solar system