Astronomers Detect Light Echoes Coming from Behind Supermassive Black Hole
Using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s NuSTAR space telescopes, astronomers have observed X-ray flares emitted from around the supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy called I Zwicky 1 (I Zw 1); further analysis of the flares has revealed short flashes of photons consistent with the re-emergence of emission from behind the black hole; these are photons that reverberate off the far side of the black hole’s accretion disk, and are bent around the black hole and magnified by the strong gravitational field.
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