The objects that lie at the heart of black holes by their very nature are mysterious objects as no light is able to escape, and so they appear as a dark space in the sky.
WHAT IS CAUSING THE BLASTS OF SUPERFAST LIGHT?
Astronomers using the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (Magic) on La Palma, in the Canary Islands, spent almost four hours observing huge bursts of radiation from this galaxy in 2012.
This is thought to be caused by matter falling into the massive black hole at the centre of IC 310.
Known as extragalactic jets, they are said to be caused by particles being accelerated away from the event horizon by shockwaves created by the matter falling into the black hole.
However, the observations of IC 310 using Magic showed that gamma ray jets being emitted from the black hole were flickering at a rate far faster than could be explained in this way.
The flashes of radiation seemed to move 279 million miles across the event horizon in just 4.8 minutes.
At the speed of light, it should have taken 25 minutes to travel this distance.
The international team of scientists, instead, suggest that the black hole must be spinning at high speeds with two jets extending from either side.
Much like viewing the beam from a lighthouse, it then seems to flicker at a faster rate than it is really spinning as there are multiple sources of radiation rather than just one.
Scientists say current theories for what caused the gamma ray outbursts are insufficient to explain their observations, and so have developed a new theory for what lies beneath the event horizon.
'No object can suddenly light up its entire surface faster than light takes to travel across it,' said Julian Sitarek one of the scientists working on the project at the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE) in Barcelona.
Galaxy IC 310 lies within the Perseus constellation and has an active galactic nucleus that throws out radio waves into the surrounding space.
Astronomers using the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (Magic) on La Palma, in the Canary Islands, spent almost four hours observing huge bursts of radiation from this galaxy in 2012.
This is thought to be caused by matter falling into the massive black hole at the centre of IC 310.
Known as extragalactic jets, they are thought to be caused by particles being accelerated away from the event horizon by shockwaves created by the matter falling into the black hole.
However, the observations of IC 310 using Magic showed that gamma ray jets being emitted from the black hole were flickering at a rate far faster than could be explained in this way.
The flashes of radiation seemed to move 279 million miles across the event horizon in just 4.8 minutes.
At the speed of light, it should have taken 25 minutes to travel this distance.
The international team of scientists, whose research is published in the journal Science, instead suggest that the black hole must be spinning at high speeds with two jets extending from either side.
Much like viewing the beam from a lighthouse, it then seems to flicker at a faster rate than it is really spinning as there are multiple sources of radiation rather than just one.
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