Supermassive black holes that were once hidden are discovered by NASA’s Chandra Observatory.
According to a recent study, hundreds of supermassive astrophysical black holes that have millions or perhaps billions of times the mass of the sun have been discovered by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Dong-Woo Kim of the Center for Astrophysics, who oversaw the study, stated that while black holes have already been discovered in great numbers, many of them are still elusive. We have discovered a missing population and gained insight into their behaviour thanks to our investigation.
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The study combines optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with X-ray data from the Chandra Source Catalog, a public database containing hundreds of thousands of X-ray sources. The combined data allowed a group of astronomers to locate hundreds of previously undiscovered black holes.
Galaxies without the unique quasar signal that appear normal in optical light yet shine brilliantly in X-rays have been known to astronomers for 40 years, according to NASA. These things are referred to as “X-ray bright optically normal galaxies,” or XBONGS.
These findings demonstrate the value of contrasting X-ray and optical data miners, according to study co-author Amanda Malnati, a student at Smith College in Massachusetts.
According to NASA, a “black hole” is a region of space where gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape. Because the substance is compressed into such a small area, the gravity is extremely intense. It may take place as a star ages.
This investigation discovered that the X-ray sources were so brilliant that practically all of them had to come from material around black holes that were expanding very quickly.
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About half of the XBONGs in this study are buried, developing supermassive black holes, according to NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer data. Between 550 million and 7.8 billion light-years separate them from our planet.
