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Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) first dedicated multi-wavelength space observatory, which is on a quest for a detailed understanding of the universe recently helped to find a mysterious black hole in a binary star system called 4U 1630-17. The black hole is deemed exotic because it spins at a speed close to the maximum possible speed of spin for a black hole and has been spotted with NASA’s X-ray telescope Chandra.
It has five payloads which rely on visible, ultraviolet and X-rays coming from celestial objects, to make observations. The payloads are called: UVIT, LAXPC, SXT, CZTI and SSM, each with its individual set of expertise.
“Such measurements, especially of the spin rate, are very difficult to make, and can be done only by high-quality X-ray observations in the correct state of the binary stellar system, in which the black hole is gobbling matter from its companion star,” said Mayukh Pahari, who started this work at TIFR, before joining the University of Southampton in the UK.
What Is AstroSat?
ISRO’s mission of AstroSat has its first X-ray telescope carried along with it, known as Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT). One of the main objectives of the mission is to understand the high energy processes in binary star systems containing neutron stars and black holes. Some other objectives include estimating magnetic fields of neutron stars, studying star birth regions and high energy processes in star systems lying beyond the milky way galaxy, detecting new briefly bright X-ray sources in the sky and performing a limited deep field survey of the Universe in the ultraviolet region.
It has five payloads which rely on visible, ultraviolet and X-rays coming from celestial objects, to make observations. The payloads are called: UVIT, LAXPC, SXT, CZTI and SSM, each with its individual set of expertise.
How Did AstroSat Discover Spinning Black Hole
For black holes, since the gravity is so powerful that no light can pass through it and is sucked in, the only two properties to characterize the black holes are mass and spin rate, and are hence extremely crucial. The spin rate of this black hole was found out to be closest to the maximum possible rate. The two instruments on AstroSat called the LAXPC and the SXT helped in this particular discovery of the fast-spinning black hole. The results were consistent with NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope. This was the first collaborative discovery of the Indian satellite AstroSat with the US’s Chandra telescope. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), and Raman Research Institute (RRI) are some other institutes that joined ISRO to make different parts of the payload.
“Such measurements, especially of the spin rate, are very difficult to make, and can be done only by high-quality X-ray observations in the correct state of the binary stellar system, in which the black hole is gobbling matter from its companion star,” said Mayukh Pahari, who started this work at TIFR, before joining the University of Southampton in the UK.
Discovery of Black Hole Is Revolutionary
One of Einstein’s general theory of relativity implications, called gravitational lensing, is that the force of gravity has the ability to twist and distort the fabric of the cosmos. The theory also predicts that when a black hole rotates it will drag space-time with it, creating a vortex that constrains all nearby objects, including photons, to follow that rotation. These observations of spinning black holes are a proof of that. Studying them gives remarkable opportunities to know about the evolution of galaxies. "And this would allow us to probe the importance of accretion and the importance of merger in creating the universe we see today," Arvind Parmar, head of Astrophysics and Fundamental Physics with the European Space Agency said. "It would help us understand why the universe looks like it does today.", he added. Although this is not the first time that spinning black holes are discovered, but it is the first time that spinning black holes at such high speeds are discovered and India is a part of it. Earlier, AstroSat hit headlines this year when it had captured the image of a galaxy cluster that is more than 800 million light years away from the Earth using its UVIT instrument. It had also measured X-ray polarization of a Crab nebula pulsar using its CZTI. With many more discoveries to come, it can be safely set that AstroSat is a very successful attempt by ISRO and the collaborating institutes in bringing deep insights of the multi-wavelength universe.- India’s Frontier AI Race Gets a 240M Model That Beats Liquid AI
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