NASA shares GIF of a new black hole 30,000 light-years away seen by students studying at an asteroid

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NASA shares GIF of a new flaring black hole 30,000 light-years away that was discovered by students studying an asteroid

  • Students using  NASA’s OSIRIS-REx to study an asteroid found a new black hole
  • It sits 30,000 light-years away and was spotted by its X-ray emissions
  • The team found it just a week after Japan’s MAXI telescope discovered it

By Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com

Published: | Updated:

University students have detected a newly flaring black hole 30,000 light-years away.

While observing an asteroid using NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, the team spotted a glowing object in the constellation Columba.

The instrument, developed by students at MIT and Harvard and designed to measure X-rays emitted from asteroids, accidentally picked up a showy flare of X-rays from a black hole that is now named MAXI J0637-430.

These X-ray emissions occur when a black hole pulls in matter from a normal star that is in orbit around it and as the matter spirals onto a spinning disk surrounding the black hole, an enormous amount of energy is released in the process – primarily in the form of X-rays.

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The new black hole was detected last fall and just a week after Japan’s MAXI telescope discovered it.

NASA has now released a GIF showing a visualization of the outburst detected by the OSIRIS-Rex instrument.

Madeline Lambert, an MIT graduate student who designed the instrument’s command sequences that serendipitously revealed the black hole, said: ‘Detecting this X-ray burst is a proud moment for the REXIS team.’

‘It means our instrument is performing as expected and to the level required of NASA science instruments.’

The instrument, developed by students at MIT and Harvard anddesigned to measure X-rays emitted from asteroids, accidentally picked up a showy flare of X-rays from a black hole that is now named MAXI J0637-430

X-ray blasts, like the one emitted from the newly discovered black hole, can only be observed from space since Earth’s protective atmosphere shields our planet from X-rays.

These X-ray emissions occur when a black hole pulls in matter from a normal star that is in orbit around it.

As the matter spirals onto a spinning disk surrounding the black hole, an enormous amount of energy (primarily in the form of X-rays) is released in the process.

‘We set out to train students how to build and operate space instruments,’ said MIT professor Richard Binzel, instrument scientist for the REXIS student experiment. ‘It turns out, the greatest lesson is to always be open to discovering the unexpected.’

The main purpose of the REXIS instrument is to prepare the next generation of scientists, engineers and project managers in the development and operations of spaceflight hardware.

WHAT ARE BLACK HOLES? 

Black holes are so dense and their gravitational pull is so strong that no form of radiation can escape them – not even light.

They act as intense sources of gravity which hoover up dust and gas around them. Their intense gravitational pull is thought to be what stars in galaxies orbit around.

How they are formed is still poorly understood. Astronomers believe they may form when a large cloud of gas up to 100,000 times bigger than the sun, collapses into a black hole.

Many of these black hole seeds then merge to form much larger supermassive black holes, which are found at the centre of every known massive galaxy.

Alternatively, a supermassive black hole seed could come from a giant star, about 100 times the sun’s mass, that ultimately forms into a black hole after it runs out of fuel and collapses.

When these giant stars die, they also go ‘supernova’, a huge explosion that expels the matter from the outer layers of the star into deep space. 

Nearly 100 undergraduate and graduate students have worked on the REXIS team since the mission’s inception.

OSIRIS-REx left Earth more than two years ago on its mission to study an asteroid and, hopefully, bring a sample back home in 2023.

The craft will spend the next year in orbit around its target before dropping down briefly so it can get close enough to scoop up a sample of dirt and rock from the surface.

Osiris-Rex’ ultimate goal is to bring back a regolith sample of at least 2.1 ounces.

Asteroid Bennu is said to be a carbon-rich hunk of rock that might contain organic materials or molecular precursors to life.

Analyzing a sample from Bennu will help planetary scientists better understand the role asteroids may have played in delivering life-forming compounds to Earth,’ NASA explains.

‘We know from having studied Bennu through Earth- and space-based telescopes that it is a carbonaceous, or carbon-rich, asteroid. Carbon is the hinge upon which organic molecules hang.

‘Bennu is likely rich in organic molecules, which are made of chains of carbon bonded with atoms of oxygen, hydrogen, and other elements in a chemical recipe that makes all known living things.