Telescopes detect light "echoes" behind a black hole for the first time.

For the very first time, scientists saw the light from behind a dark hole.

Black holes are regions of space-time in which the force of gravity is so powerful that even light does not escape its grasp. However, while light cannot escape a dark hole, its extreme gravity distorts the space around it, allowing light to "echo", bending around the back of the object. As a result of this strange phenomenon, astronomers have, for the first time, observed light from a black hole.

In a new study, researchers, led by Dan Wilkins, an astrophysicist at Stanford University in California, used the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton and NASA's NuSTAR space telescopes to observe the light from behind a black hole that's 10 million times more massive than our sun and lies 800 million light-years away in the spiral galaxy I Zwicky 1, according to a statement from ESA.

This study began with the researchers' desire to expand our understanding of black hole coronas, which are the source of the X-ray light that often radiates from the vicinity of these objects. . Luminous X-ray flares are emitted by gases that fall into black holes from their accretion discs, the discs of dust and gas that surround and "power" these objects.

The team spotted an X-ray eruption in I Zwicky 1 that was so luminous that part of the light reflected by the gas falling back into the black hole. When that reflected light was bent around the back of the black hole by the object's extreme gravity, the team was able to spot it using the ESA and NASA space telescopes.

The team didn't just observe this light, which is the first time it has been directly observed like this; they also took note of how the X-ray light changed color as it bent and moved around the back of the black hole. By observing the journey of light behind the black hole, the researchers hope to better understand what is really going on in the vicinity of these gravitational swirls.

As a result of this groundbreaking study, the team aims to create a 3D map of the black hole environment. They also hope to better understand the coronas of black holes and explore how the corona of a black hole is capable of producing these bright X-ray flashes.

It was described in a study published on 28 July in the journal Nature.