Gamma ray burst detected in M87* black hole

In 2019, scientists at the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project published the first photo of a supermassive black hole in the M87 galaxy. A recent new study suggests that the data collected during the observation also reveals another fascinating cosmic phenomenon: A gamma ray burst from a black hole.

The paper, published in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, details how the EHT team managed to capture other important information about the black hole: He named it M87* in honor of its home galaxy.

Co-author of the study and astrophysicist Giacomo Principe said in a statement that the team was lucky in detecting the gamma ray flare. Researchers still don’t understand How exactly does this gamma ray emission work in plasma jets?however, we believe these may be a result of materials falling into the jet and being accelerated to high energies.

Precisely because of these features, these explosions are unpredictable; It is no wonder that observation is a matter of chance.

“[A detecção] “This marks the first gamma-ray burst event observed from this source in over a decade and allows us to precisely constrain the size of the region responsible for the observed gamma-ray emission,” Principe said. he adds.

Gamma ray flash

The article notes that a supermassive black hole in the process of feeding often emits plasma jets. This probably happens It is formed by the interaction between the external magnetic field of the black hole and the material it attracts to the event horizon.

The gamma rays emitted by these jets occurred for three consecutive days, and the emission spread approximately 170 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth.. The M87 galaxy is located approximately 55 million light-years away from the Milky Way.

So far, the team has not been able to pinpoint the exact source of the gamma-ray emission or why it was occurring at that particular moment. Science is still trying to understand how this phenomenon works, but The researchers believe that this study could provide important data for other research in the region.

“The rapid variability in gamma rays suggests that the flare region is extremely small, only about ten times the size of the central black hole. Interestingly, the pronounced variability observed in gamma rays could not be detected at other wavelengths,” said astrophysicist Daniel Mazin of the University of Tokyo. He explains that the flash region has a complex structure and exhibits different properties depending on wavelength.

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