Black holes are perhaps the most exotic objects to impinge on the cosmic consciousness. They are formed when matter such as that from a dying massive star collapses in calamitously under its own gravity, forming a region of space in which the gravitational field is so strong that it swallows all matter and radiation that come near it. |
If a car was as fuel-efficient as these black holes, it could theoretically travel over a billion miles on a gallon of gas. |
That's a mystery, how these black holes selectively put that much energy into the jets without producing much light. |
There are other families of particles out there that can form massive compact objects. |
There had to be something else happening that would explain this discrepancy. Rather than trying to compete, I decided join up. |
They attracted our attention because they were too boring. |
They never seem to lose their efficiency, they just put out the energy in different ways in different phases. |
Though we don't definitely know the mechanism by which these jets are produced, our findings are supportive of the idea that magnetic field lines interact in a way that causes them to work like the elastic bands of a giant sling shot throwing incoming material back out from the black hole. |
We see enough energy coming out of these black holes to completely stifle star formation. This is an exciting finding because it demonstrates a direct interaction between black holes and galaxy formation, which is a hot topic in astrophysics right now. |