This temporal correspondence that was revealed by ten years of data from Fermi gamma-ray space telescope suggests a direct connection, but it is not clear exactly how the microquasar drives the gamma-ray "heartbeat" of the gas cloud. In the same rhythm as the tumbling jets and accretion disk, the inconspicuous gas cloud about 100 light years away pulsates in gamma rays. As the accretion disk does not lie exactly in the orbital plane of the two partners, it sways like a spinning top set at an angle, and with it the jets do so as well, describe spirals in space.
However, some of the matter does not fall into the black hole, but is hurled out into space in two narrow jets at the top and bottom. This matter collects on an accretion disk before falling into the black hole. This consists of the black hole and a giant star orbiting each other, while the black hole constantly sucks matter from the star. The black hole is part of a so-called microquasar. Voilà, here’s the puzzling discovery our last post referred to: A strange gamma-ray heartbeat from a cosmic gas cloud that pulsates in sync with a wobbling black hole. "The consistent periods indicate the gas cloud's emission is powered by the microquasar," Li said. The position was revealed using Arecibo Observatory's telescope, and Fermi provided data about the SS 433 system. The researchers have labeled the position in the gas cloud Fermi J1913+0515. The researchers found that the precession, or wobble, of the black hole's jets, matched with a gamma-ray signal emitted from a gas cloud. Engineers are assessing what caused a cable to break and plans for repairs. The observatory was recently damaged and is currently offline, but scientists continue to have access to data previously collected.
The researchers made the discovery by analyzing more than a decade of data from NASA's Fermi Large Area Space Telescope and from Galactic ALFA HI survey data collected with the Arecibo Observatory's 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope. Some of the matter doesn't fall into the hole though but rather jets out in high-speed spirals from the disc's center in both directions, top, and bottom, like pegs on a wheel. The gas cloud pulsates at the same rhythm as a distant quasar with a black hole at its center. The black hole sucks matter from the giant star while orbiting it, forming a swirling accretion disc that drains into the black hole, like water into a bathtub drain. In the SS 433 system, a black hole orbits a "giant star" 30 times the mass of Earth's sun. "It provides us with a chance to unveil the particle transport from SS 433 and to probe the structure of the magnetic field in its vicinity," added Li. "This result challenges obvious interpretations and is unexpected from previously published theoretical models," said Jian Li, a Humboldt Fellow with the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Zeuthen, Germany, and study co-author. The results were published today in the journal Nature Astronomy. The cloud is in the constellation Aquilla and "beats" in rhythm with a black hole 100 light-years away in a microquasar system known as SS 433. An international team of researchers using data from Arecibo Observatory and the Fermi Space Telescope have discovered what they call a "gamma-ray heartbeat" coming from a cosmic gas cloud.
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