accretion disk tagged posts

The 2D map of this ‘disk wind’ may reveal clues to galaxy formation.

Astronomers have mapped the ‘disk winds’ associated with the accretion disk around Hercules X-1, a system in which a neutron star is drawing material away from a sun-like star. The findings may offer clues to how supermassive black holes shape entire galaxies.

An accretion disk is a colossal whirlpool o...

A pair of orbiting black holes millions of times the Sun’s mass perform a hypnotic pas de deux in a new NASA visualization. The movie traces how the black holes distort and redirect light emanating from the maelstrom of hot gas — called an accretion disk — that surrounds each one.

Viewed from near the orbital plane, each accretion disk takes ...

Work gives clues about how powerful jets are driven. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has produced a new image showing details of the magnetic fields in the region closest to the supermassive black hole at the core of the galaxy M87. The new work is providing astronomers with important clues about how powerful jets of material can be produced in that region.

A worldwide team of astronomers using the Event Horizon Telescope, a collection of eight telescopes, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, measured a signature of magnetic fields — called polarization — around the black...

When a star passes too close to a supermassive black hole, tidal forces tear it apart, producing a bright flare of radiation as material from the star falls into the black hole. Astronomers study the light from these “tidal disruption events” (TDEs) for clues to the feeding behavior of the supermassive black holes lurking at the centers of galaxies.

New TDE observations led by astronomers at UC Santa Cruz now provide clear evidence that debris from the star forms a rotating disk, ie an accretion disk, around the black hole...