A supermassive blackhole feasted on the fluffy disk of swirling gas, these disks are the remains of the shredded and trapped stars. These supermassive black holes have mass millions and billions of times heavier than of our Sun.
According to the scientists how these black holes feed is still a mystery as they are not sure of the reason. Astrophysicists have long been intrigued about the behaviour of matter that gets drawn towards the black holes.
Instead of plunging directly into the black hole, this material forms a hot, rapidly rotating accretion disk. The disk later orbits the black hole and gradually spirals inward and gets feated by the black hole.
As this procedure takes place the disk results in radiation of intense heat after converting the gravitational energy to heat creating a source of light in the black hole. The continued existence of the disk depends on the availability of nearby matter to feed into the black hole's gravitational pull.
There is a computer-generated simulation that explains the long existence of these disks. According to the scientists, this simulation tracked down the journey of this gas disk from its early stage to the ending that happened at the black hole.
The formation and maintenance of the accretion disk are crucial for understanding the dynamics of black holes. This simulation helped scientists understand why matter in the disk spirals closer to the black hole, at what speed it falls and the thickness along with their masses.
The process of material spiralling into the black hole also plays a significant role in the growth and evolution of black holes. The interaction between the accretion disk and the black hole's gravity influences the rate at which the black hole gains mass. Additionally, the intense radiation from the disk can affect the surrounding environment, potentially impacting the formation of stars and galaxies.
According to Space.com, Phil Hopkins, a theoretical astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology has shared information on this and said "Our theories told us the disks should be flat like crepes," "But we knew this wasn't right because astronomical observations reveal that the disks are actually fluffy — more like an angel cake. Our simulation helped us understand that magnetic fields are propping up the disk material, making it fluffier."
According to the researchers, the code creation was not an easy task as the complex physics demands code that can easily handle it. With the help of the code, the researcher created a simulation of a black hole that is 10 million the mass of our Sun.
This stimulation displays the zoom of a supermassive black hole from between the tangled galaxies that are circled by the gas disk, showing the black hole feeding on it. It is seen that the magnetic field that took the disk's momentum made it fall inwards, making it unable to escape the black hole.
Hopkins said in the statement "In our simulation, we see this accretion disk form around the black hole," he further added, "We would have been very excited if we had just seen that accretion disk, but what was very surprising was that the simulated disk doesn't look like what we've thought for decades it should look like."
Understanding the complex interplay between the accretion disk and the black hole is essential for unravelling the mysteries of these enigmatic cosmic objects.
Advances in observational techniques and theoretical models continue to shed light on these processes, providing deeper insights into the behaviour of matter under extreme gravitational forces.
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