Theory: Black hole winds allow some matter to escape

Matter can escape from a black hole through supersonic winds originating in an accretion disk, like this one in the galaxy NGC 7052

(CNN) -- Black holes might produce great winds that allow some matter to escape their deadly clutches, scientists said Wednesday. The new theory could reconcile a conflict between theoretical models and observational data on black holes.

Black holes are thought to be so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull once it crosses over its theoretical border, known as the event horizon. But astronomical observations have revealed unexplained outflows of matter from the vicinity of black holes.

"We often think of black holes pulling in matter, but actually what we observe with our current instrumentation is matter flying out," said Timothy Kallman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland in a statement.

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This NASA movie shows a clumpy, high-velocity stream of a UV-driven particle wind emanating from a black hole accretion disk. The colors represent the density of particles that make up the wind. Yellow is the most dense region, followed by red, green and blue (the least dense) 696 K / 6.12 sec. / 320x240 QuickTime movie Please enable Javascript

"We couldn't explain exactly what was going on, and this led to a certain level of uncertainty in what the data were saying. Now we can start to explain what we've been seeing," added Goddard's Daniel Proga, who along with Kallan and several other scientists presented the theory at a space research conference in Poland.

Astronomers think that some matter escapes black holes through particle jets shooting from the poles of the giant collapsed stars.

The new theory, however, suggests that additional matter is spared by supersonic winds generated in a swirling mass of matter around the equatorial region of a black hole, the accretion disk.

Proga and his colleagues hypothesize that intense ultraviolet light emanating from the accretion disk region produces two types of winds.

Together they produce a shield that allows certain types of matter in the outer regions of the accretion disk area to sail away to safety, according to the Greenbelt, Maryland-based Goddard center.

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Chandra image suggests a traffic jam surrounds black hole
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NASA
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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