NASA and ESA satellite telescopes observing a black hole

26/10/2018

A research team led by Sabancı University faculty member Professor Emrah Kalemci observed a black hole system named MAXI J1820+070 simultaneously with the European Space Agency (ESA) gamma-ray satellite INTEGRAL, NASA X-ray satellite SWIFT, and Tübitak National Observatory telescopes.

Emrah Kalemci

Black holes are celestial bodies that can have extreme gravitational pull while having minuscule dimensions. When these bodies are found in a binary star system with a normal star, the matter flowing from the normal star into the black hole heats and emits massive doses of X-rays. When doing so, they become the brightest emitters of X rays in the Milky Way galaxy. As the flow of matter slows down, for reasons not yet fully understood, black holes may eject some of the matter surrounding them from the system in the form of a jet.

Black Hole and Jet

A research team led by Emrah Kalemci has been writing observing proposals to large space telescopes to understand the physical causes of the change in emissions around a black hole. For this study, the INTEGRAL observatory recorded 300,000 seconds of observation of the source named MAXI J1820+070 between October 2 and 4, and sent data to the research group composed of Dr. Tolga Dinçer (Yale University; PhD Sabancı University), Dr. Mehtap Özbey Arabacı (Erzurum Atatürk University), Dr. John Tomsick (UC Berkeley), Dr. Katja Pottschmidt (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), Dr. Jörn Wilms (University of Erlangen, Germany) and Dr. Tomaso Belloni (Brera Observatory, Italy). Before, during and after the INTEGRAL observation, daily observations were made with the SWIFT satellite to understand the changes in lower-energy X-rays. While X-rays provide information about physical events in the immediate vicinity of the black hole, emission from a jet is observed in the radio, infrared and optical (visible) light. The team contacted the TÜBİTAK National Observatory to use the T100 and RTT150 telescopes in Antalya Bakırlıtepe to conduct observations before and during the INTEGRAL observations. Data is being analyzed and the results will be presented in international prestigious journals.