Context:
Indian researchers detected polarized emissions for the first time from a black hole outside the Milky Way using a technique called X-ray polarimetry.
Key Findings:
- Radiations are emitted from the vicinity of a black hole located in the Large Magellanic Cloud-X-3 (LMC X3) and located 200,000 light years away from the Earth.
- LMC X-3 emits X-rays that are 10,000 times more powerful than those from the Sun.
- These X-rays changes the polarization characteristics, i.e. degree and angle.
The Magellanic Clouds are two irregular dwarf satellite galaxies orbiting our Milky Way galaxy in the southern celestial hemisphere.
- Researchers studied LMC X-3 using the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) Mission, and Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).
- IXPE – 1st mission of NASA to study the polarization of X-rays from celestial objects.
- ISRO’s X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) – 2nd satellite in a row.
About X-ray polarimetry:
- It is a unique observational technique to identify where radiation comes from near black holes.
- It helps in studying the origin of cosmic rays in the universe, the nature of black holes, and the interaction of matter with the highest physically possible magnetic fields.
Source: Hindustan Times
Previous Year Question
Recently, Scientists observed the merger of giant blackholes’ billions of light-years away from the Earth. What is the significance of this observation?
[UPCS Civil Services Exam – 2019 Prelims]
(a) ‘Higgs boson particles’ were detected.
(b) ‘Gravitational waves’ were detected.
(c) Possibility of inter-galactic space travel through ‘wormhole’ was confirmed.
(d) It enabled the scientists to understand ‘singularity’.
Answer: (b)
