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Death Spiral: a Black Hole Spins On Its Side - 'Completely Unexpected' (scitechdaily.com) 17

Posted by EditorDavid from the sideways-look dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader IHTFISP brings this report from SciTechDaily: Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, found that the axis of rotation of a black hole in a binary system is tilted more than 40 degrees relative to the axis of stellar orbit. The finding challenges current theoretical models of black hole formation. The observation by the researchers from Tuorla Observatory in Finland is the first reliable measurement that shows a large difference between the axis of rotation of a black hole and the axis of a binary system orbit. The difference between the axes measured by the researchers in a binary star system called MAXI J1820+070 was more than 40 degrees....

[T]he researchers were able to determine the direction of the axis of rotation of the black hole very accurately. As the amount of gas falling from the companion star to the black hole later began to decrease, the system dimmed, and much of the light in the system came from the companion star. In this way, the researchers were able to measure the orbit inclination using spectroscopic techniques, and it happened to nearly coincide with the inclination of the ejections....

The results published in Science magazine open interesting prospects towards studies of black hole formation and evolution of such systems, as such extreme misalignment is hard to get in many black hole formation and binary evolution scenarios. "The difference of more than 40 degrees between the orbital axis and the black hole spin was completely unexpected. Scientists have often assumed this difference to be very small when they have modeled the behavior of matter in a curved time space around a black hole. The current models are already really complex, and now the new findings force us to add a new dimension to them," Poutanen states.
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Death Spiral: a Black Hole Spins On Its Side - 'Completely Unexpected' More

Death Spiral: a Black Hole Spins On Its Side - 'Completely Unexpected'

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  • We assume/presume that because our solar system behaves in a certain way, the universe must act the same way. It's like saying, that every cook prepares food exactly the same way. That's not true.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Ya, astrophysicists would never think to assume the solar system is paradigmatic. Maybe you could tell them to stop doing that.

    • I think you are severely simplifying things here and making some really big assumptions. Astronomers and cosmologists absolutely do not predispose that everything acts like what we see in our backyard. What they do though is observe as much as they can and attempt to make sense of what we're seeing. Based on that we attempt to generate models that help us to determine how things work, why they work and perhaps how they formed. We then update that as we observe and learn new things. They weren't surprised by

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      Actual astrophysicist: "This is nothing like what we see in our solar system! This is soo cool! New stuff to explore!"

    • "It's like saying, that every cook prepares food exactly the same way."

      Even that is taking it too far. That's expecting every cook to prepare the same food.

    • People are probably expecting that because preservation of angular momentum is a thing.

  • This is freakin' space. Just rotate your camera.

  • Doesn't this happen on macro scales? Don't know what the math would look like with a black hole involved, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

  • ... The professors and graduate students of University of Turku, Finland were also totally shocked and taken aback when Darth Vader said, "Luke, I am your father!". It was further clarified they belonged to the School of Acting and Drama specializing in acting roles for commercials. "Our students are going to have a career showing complete surprise that the New! and Exciting jar of peanut butter has 30% more for free. We recruit students who are natural in being surprised."

  • Black holes can have charge and angular momentum according to the current theories. I'm going to speculate that this one has a charge, and the spin is interacting with the magnetic fields around the other star.

  • Had tilt 40 degrees and distance to it in LIGHT YEARS? Had that tilt when?

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