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Here's how gravitational lensing will help study the inside of black hole

The proposed imaging technique will help researchers detect a black hole smaller than M87, which is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun.

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(Image Source: Reuters)
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With the help of gravitational lensing, researchers can now find out the size of a black hole through this new technique. While isolated black holes do not produce detectable emission, their gravity can bend and focus light from background objects. This bending and focusing of light through gravity is known as gravitational lensing.

Useful only in process of merger

Gravitational lensing technology is not new to black holes, but it has not yet been used on them. This technique of research can be used only during the process of merger, which can determine the size of supermassive black holes, as well as it can be used to investigate alternative theories of gravity.

Read | How the black hole may have reversed its entire magnetic field

New way of looking at empty hole

Three years ago, astronomers using the Event Horizon Telescope produced the first image of a black hole's shadow, showing a ring of energetic particles surrounding an empty hole. After this, the picture has been updated many times. Now astronomers have found a new and easy way to see this empty black hole.

How big is the size of a black hole

The proposed imaging technique will help researchers detect a black hole smaller than M87, which is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun. With this technique, the black holes of distant galaxies can also be studied. The M87 black hole itself is at a distance of 55 million light-years and is relatively close to the Milky Way.

Two key terms

There are two conditions for this new technology. For this it is necessary that the black hole should be from pairs whose orbits are around and are going through the process of merger. In addition, we must have a dot as seen from the side of a double pair of black holes.

In such a situation, the glowing ring of the distant black hole appears like a bright flash light due to the gravitational lensing of the nearby black hole.

Decline in brightness

This bright flash light also contains hidden hints. This signal is a drop in brightness according to the size of the shadow of the distant black. The decline in brightness can last from a few hours to a few days. It depends on both the mass of the black hole and the proximity of their orbits.

The shape and size of this shadow, which is formed by the event horizon of the black hole, can be inferred from the fact that this fall is short-lived.

Old technology

As matter falls inside the black hole, moving very fast, the matter near it starts shining and starts releasing high energy particles and near the empty hole of the black hole, a ring of bright matter is formed and light is not able to escape from the hole. While it took scientists years to image the M87 black hole, that technique was able to work on the Milky Way black hole or the massive and very close pair of M87.

But in the new technology it is not necessary to see both the black holes. Rather, such signals can be seen in many galaxies. The shadow of a black hole can give information about mysterious things along with giving many information at once. In this method, apart from the size of the black hole, the shape of space time and how matter falls into the black hole near the horizon can also be told.

(With Agency Inputs)

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