Black Hole’s High Speed Jet Contain Heavy Atoms, Astronomers Confirm

A team of international researchers has finally solved the mystery of the high speed jets that are emitted from active black holes.

The concept of black hole spraying high speed jets is not new, yet not much is known about these superenergetic jets. These high speed jets, that reach about 66 percent of the speed of light, are in fact fine beams of matter with electrons that are released from black holes. But the contents of these jets still remain a mystery somewhat.

In order to delve into this mystery and discover what powers these high speed jets, the ESO astronomer Dr Maria Diaz Trigo, lead author of the study, along with team members studied the radio waves and X-rays spat out by a small black hole,  slightly bigger than the Sun.

Using the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite, the researchers observed '4U1630-47'- a well documented black hole. They examined the black hole in radio wavelengths with the help of CISRO's Compact Array Radio Telescope and noticed that the jets contained heavy atoms of iron and nickel.

"Until now, it wasn't clear whether the positive charge came from positrons, the antimatter 'opposite' of electrons, or positively charged atoms," study co-author James Miller-Jones, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Australia, said in a statement. "Since our results found nickel and iron in these jets, we now know ordinary matter must be providing the positive charge."

Since the positively charged atoms are heavier when compared to the positrons, the astronomer's suspect that these positively charged atoms play a key role in the jet streams that pack a powerful punch.

Reports according to Astronomy Magazine state that this new discovery suggests the jets are powered by the accretion disk of the black hole. Accretion disk is the belt of hot gas that is found spinning around the black hole, and they confirm that the jets are not a result of the spin of the black hole, if so the jets produced would contain just light particles and not heavy atoms like iron and nickel.

"The jets from 4U1630-47 are traveling fast, at two-thirds the speed of light. When such fast-moving jets containing heavy particles smash into matter in space, they could generate gamma rays and neutrinos, which might be detectable with current and future telescopes," source Astronomy Magazine.

Due to the positively charged atoms a great amount of energy is drawn away from the black hole through these jets.

Miller-Jones says, "Our results suggest it's more likely the disk is responsible for channeling the matter into the jets, and we are planning further observations to try and confirm this."