First Evidence of Spinning Black Hole Detected by Scientists 20
Astronomers have captured the first direct evidence of a black hole spinning, providing new insights into the universe's most enigmatic objects. From a report: The observations focus on the supermassive black hole at the centre of the neighbouring Messier 87 galaxy, whose shadow was imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope. Like many supermassive black holes, M87 features powerful jets that are launched from the poles at close to the speed of light into intergalactic space. Scientists have predicted that the rotation of a black hole powers these cosmic jets, but until now direct evidence was elusive.
"After the success of black hole imaging in this galaxy with the Event Horizon Telescope, whether this black hole is spinning or not has been a central concern among scientists," said Dr Kazuhiro Hada, of the national astronomical observatory of Japan and co-author. "Now anticipation has turned into certainty. This monster black hole is indeed spinning." M87 is located 55m light years from the Earth and harbours a black hole 6.5bn times more massive than the Sun. Just beyond the black hole is an accretion disk of gas and dust, swirling on the precipice of the cosmic sinkhole. Some of this material is destined to fall into the black hole, disappearing for ever. But a fraction will be ejected out from the poles of the black hole at more than 99.99% of the speed of light. The paper: Precessing jet nozzle connecting to a spinning black hole in M87 (Nature).
"After the success of black hole imaging in this galaxy with the Event Horizon Telescope, whether this black hole is spinning or not has been a central concern among scientists," said Dr Kazuhiro Hada, of the national astronomical observatory of Japan and co-author. "Now anticipation has turned into certainty. This monster black hole is indeed spinning." M87 is located 55m light years from the Earth and harbours a black hole 6.5bn times more massive than the Sun. Just beyond the black hole is an accretion disk of gas and dust, swirling on the precipice of the cosmic sinkhole. Some of this material is destined to fall into the black hole, disappearing for ever. But a fraction will be ejected out from the poles of the black hole at more than 99.99% of the speed of light. The paper: Precessing jet nozzle connecting to a spinning black hole in M87 (Nature).
The spin confuses me (Score:2)
I've always been confused by the existence of disks such as Saturn's rings, the solar system, accretion disks, etc. If there are particles of matter all around in three-dimensional space, why would they form a disk instead of a cloud where every bit of matter essentially has it's own orbital trajectory?
Re:The spin confuses me (Score:4, Informative)
Angular momentum.
Even though they are randomly distributed, the angular momenta of the particles will not add up to zero. Angular momentum is conserved, so when you clump it all together, you get an object with the same total angular momentum, hence rotating around an axis. That axis in turn breaks the spherical symmetry, so you're left with cylindrical symmetry around that axis, hence rings, disks etc.
Re:The spin confuses me (Score:5, Interesting)
But yea, with regular matter it self interacts and clumps. Combine that with an orbit where you can cancel out the polar angular momentum by collisions but orbitally it’s all traveling in the same direction with minimal collisions and you naturally get disks and rings.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Particles in a space cloud collide and interact ("friction") and so can't maintain random orbits, eventually they stabilize into a disc shape with the same angular momentum
Re: (Score:2)
On earth, hurricanes always spin the same direction, even though initially the severe weather is randomly distributed. The low pressure at the center sucks in the air around it, and the earth's spin causes that air movement not to collide in the middle, but to settle into a spin around a vortex.
Similarly, in space that random distribution of dust and rocks is "sucked" in to the center of mass, but the angular momentum of the larger system around it, causes the matter to settle in to a spin around that centr
Re: (Score:2)
They spin in reverse in the southern hemisphere.
Re: (Score:2)
Hurricanes are tropical cyclones that occur in the northern hemisphere, so they do in fact always spin the same direction.
Tropical cyclones that occur in the southern hemisphere are called typhoons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:1)
Wow I did not know that e.g. Japan and China or the Fillipines are in the southern hemisphere.
Thanks for the update.
Sweet (Score:3)
So now we just need to figure out how to slingshot off a spinning black hole.
Re: (Score:2)
You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round (Score:2)
What does Michio say? (Score:2)
I won't believe it until Michio Kaku tells us what it all means for human civilization, the probability of life in the Universe, the future of AI, and how it was all predicted by String Theory.
Can a singularity really Spin? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Black holes are spheres.
What does 'spinning' mean in this context? (Score:2)
A black hole is made of mass and mass can spin... but what does that mean in relation to a black hole? None of the mass can be touched and nothing touching the mass can interact with the rest of the Universe. So, what does 'spinning' mean in this context?
Re: (Score:2)
A rotating mass will rotate the space-time around it, which affects the motion of objects around it. The accretion of matter around a black hole creates outward jets of matter, and the paper suggests that the axis of these jets if precessing, i.e. the direction is rotating about another axis. Frame dragging would suggest that this other axis is the axis of rotation of the black hole, and hence of the surrounding space-time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It's quite interesting that the black hole and t
Messier 87 (Score:1)