A supermassive black hole is firing high-energy particle jet towards Earth

Source: The post is based on the article “A supermassive black hole is firing high-energy particle jet towards Earth”  published in Indian Express on 26th July 2023.

What is the News?

NASA’s IXPE Mission has unveiled several mysteries of the Supermassive Black Hole Markarian 421.

It has found that Markarian 421 is firing a jet of high-energy particles aimed directly at Earth.

What is Markarian 421?

Markarian 421 is a supermassive black hole. It is about 400 million light-years away from the earth.

It is located in the constellation Ursa Major.

What is the IXPE Mission?

Click Here to read

What is a Supermassive Black Hole?

Supermassive black holes are extremely large and incredibly dense regions in the centers of most galaxies, including our own Milky Way galaxy. 

They are characterized by their immense gravitational pull, which is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from them once it crosses a point called the event horizon.These black holes have masses that range from hundreds of thousands to billions of times that of our sun.

The origin of supermassive black holes is not entirely understood, but they are thought to have formed and grown through a combination of processes, including accretion of gas and the merging of smaller black holes over billions of years.

Supermassive black holes are associated with powerful phenomena, such as active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and quasars, where vast amounts of energy are released as material falls into the black hole and emits intense radiation

Studying supermassive black holes helps astronomers better understand the evolution of galaxies, the interactions between black holes and their surrounding environments, and the fundamental nature of gravity and space-time in extreme conditions.