Astronomers Finally Calculate the Speed of a Supermassive Black Hole’s Spin
Supermassive black holes are one of the universe’s greatest mysteries, however scientists continue to chip away at their unknown properties more and more all the time. Now, in a cosmic first, astronomers say they have finally calculated the speed in which one of them swirls.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:03 Supermassive black holes are one of the universe's greatest mysteries.
00:07 However, scientists continue to chip away at their unknown properties more and more all the time.
00:12 And now, in a cosmic first, astronomers say they have finally calculated the speed in which one of them swirls.
00:18 The black hole in question resides around a billion light-years from our solar system,
00:22 and experts at MIT were able to observe the moment it began to devour another object.
00:27 This caused a flare of light to be released as the disk of devoured material spun and wobbled on its axis.
00:32 The MIT researchers say this allowed them to calculate the spinning speed of the supermassive black hole itself.
00:38 And it's actually quite slow.
00:39 They found it was spinning on its axis at less than a quarter of the speed of light.
00:43 That's still extremely fast.
00:45 However, other studies looking at non-supermassive black holes revealed they spun pretty close to the speed of light.
00:50 Black holes are difficult to observe because the speed needed to escape their extreme gravitational pull is faster than the speed of light.
00:57 The upper speed limit of anything.
00:59 That's why astronomers must observe black holes when they devour other objects.
01:02 And those objects release light before their material passes over the event horizon or the point of no return.
01:08 Experts say this new data will help them develop new theories about how black holes evolve.
01:13 [ Music ]