A system of rings formed around the black hole
The American space agency NASA has published pictures of the unusual phenomenon. Several rings have been discovered around the black hole, which is 7,800 light-years from the solar system.
The black hole is located next to the V404 Cygni star system. The photographs were taken by the Chandra and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatories, according to the Astrophysical Journal.
Scientists have established the origin of the rings. A black hole attracts matter from a star whose mass is half that of the sun. The result is rings that are visible only in the X-ray range.
“The rings tell astronomers not only about the behavior of a black hole, but also about the landscape between V404 Cygni and Earth,” the astronomers noted.
So, the diameter of the rings in X-rays shows the distance to the dust clouds from which the light was reflected. If the cloud is closer to the Earth, the ring appears larger, and vice versa.
The rings are created by the light echo. This phenomenon exists on Earth – sound waves are reflected from hard surfaces. In space, a burst of X-rays bounced off dust clouds between V404 Cygni and our planet.
Scientists noted that cosmic dust is not like Earth's – it looks like smoke and is made up of tiny particulate matter. An X-ray burst from the stellar system was detected in June 2015, but the images were only released now.
Earlier it was reported that the echo of a black hole confirmed Einstein's theory. The discovery was made by astronomers at Stanford University.
