Wobbly black hole blasts plasma jets, warps space and time

PERTH, AUSTRALIA — Astronomers have discovered unusually rapid jets of plasma spewing from an extraordinary black hole in space.

According to research published in the journal Nature, the V404 Cygni binary system located 7,800 light years from Earth contains a black hole that feeds on a nearby star, with the material siphoned circling the hole in the form of an accretion disc.

Some of the particles that fall into the black hole escape via jets of plasma called relativistic jets that shoot from its poles.

But while most jets shoot straight out, the jets of the V404 Cygni black hole shoot out rapidly in different directions and at different times.

According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, a spinning black hole's gravitational field pulls space and time around with it — an effect called frame-dragging.

In V404 Cygni, the black hole and disc are misaligned, causing the frame-dragging effect to warp the doughnut-shaped inner ring. This in turn causes it to wobble like a spinning top and fire jets out in different directions.

Researchers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research say that since the black hole was moving so fast, the usual radio telescopes that rely on long exposure for imaging became useless.

Instead, the team produced 103 individual images each roughly 70 seconds long, that they then joined together into a movie.