Blazars are powered by immensely active supermassive black holes that fire beams of particles into space.
satellite, which launched in December 2021, to observe the blazar Markarian 501, which is located about 456 million light-years away from Earth. IXPE is particularly talented at observing the polarization of light, which refers to the orientation in which light waves are seen to preferentially oscillate.
The Markarian 501 observations, made in March 2022, measured the level of X-ray polarization to be 10%, which is about twice as much as seen in optical light farther up the jet, away from the black hole. The X-ray polarization angle was also shown to be consistently parallel to the jet close to the jet's source.
This observations seemingly rule out turbulence or plasma instabilities as mechanisms for accelerating the particles because these processes would not produce the highly structured magnetic fields needed for the observed level of X-ray polarization. As a result, the researchers think that a shock wave in the jet is the most likely mechanism for accelerating the particles to their eye-watering speeds.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
We may finally know how blazars act as cosmic particle acceleratorsSupermassive black holes that beam powerful jets of matter towards Earth, known as blazars, accelerate particles to extraordinarily high energies – and astronomers have finally figured out how
Read more »
Black Friday 2022 live blog: Today's PS5 restock, the best Black Friday deals and moreBlack Friday 2022 isn't until Nov. 25, but the early Black Friday deals have already begun at Amazon and Walmart.
Read more »
Don't Wait Until Black Friday—You Have 12 Hours To Snag One of Nectar's Award-Winning Mattresses On Super SaleDon't sleep on this major mattress deal. Nectar mattresses are already on sale for 33 percent off before Black Friday—no code required.
Read more »
ESPN to host Main Street Tailgate in Scottsdale for Super Bowl in FebruaryAre you ready for some football 🏈 ESPN is laying out plans for the Historic Old Town ESPN Main Street Tailgate party leading up to the Super Bowl. Fans will have opportunities to be on LIVE ESPN broadcasts and so much more!
Read more »
'The Menu' Is A Wild New Movie That's Super Dark, Surprisingly Hilarious, And Honestly Really GreatAnya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes, and Nicholas Hoult star in this entertaining new movie from Game of Thrones and Succession director Mark Mylod.
Read more »
Dragon Ball Super Sets Up Teenage Goten and Trunks' Manga DebutDragon Ball Super finally aged up Goten and Trunks in the latest new anime release, and now these [...]
Read more »