Explanation:
What happens to matter that falls toward an energetic black hole?
In the case of
Cygnus X-1,
perhaps little of that matter actually makes it in.
Infalling gas may first collide not only with itself but with an
accretion disk
of swirling material surrounding the
black hole.
The result may be a
microquasar that glows across the
electromagnetic spectrum and produces powerful
jets that expel much of the
infalling matter back into the cosmos at near light speed
before it can even
approach the black
hole's
event horizon.
Confirmation that black hole jets may create expanding shells has come recently from the discovery of shells surrounding Cygnus X-1.
Pictured above on the upper right is one such shell quite possibly created by the jet of microquasar and black hole candidate
Cygnus X-1.
Rolling your cursor over the image will bring up an annotated version.
The physical processes that create the
black hole jets is a topic that continues to be researched.
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