X Ray discovery by IIT Guwahati

X Ray discovery by IIT Guwahati-Researchers from IIT Guwahati, ISRO’s U. R. Rao Satellite Centre, and Haifa University, Israel, have made a significant discovery involving a mysterious pattern of X-ray flickering emits from a distant black hole named GRS 1915+105, located about 28,000 light-years from Earth.

Using data from India’s multi-wavelength space observatory AstroSat, they observed that the black hole’s X-ray brightness alternates between bright and dim phases lasting several hundred seconds each.

Key findings include:

• The discovery of rapid X-ray flickering repeating nearly 70 times per second (∼70 Hz) during the high-brightness phases.
• These rapid flickers disappear completely during the low-brightness phases.
• The flickering is associated with changes in the corona, the hot plasma surrounding the black hole. During bright phases, the corona becomes more compact and hotter, producing intense flickers, while during dim phases.
• it expands and cools, causing flickers to vanish.
• This provides deeper insights into how black holes grow, release energy, and influence their cosmic neighborhoods.

X Ray discovery by IIT Guwahati

This breakthrough that came in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, which is visible as a major advancement in understanding black hole dynamics and the extreme environments near their edges. This offers clues about the evolution of entire galaxies.

The unique observational capabilities of AstroSat played a crucial role in making this discovery possible.

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