{"id":25504,"date":"2021-10-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/?p=25504&preview=true&preview_id=25504"},"modified":"2021-10-21T12:29:26","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T12:29:26","slug":"black-hole-gives-clue-on-dark-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/2021\/10\/21\/black-hole-gives-clue-on-dark-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Black hole gives clue on dark matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
A glowing stream of material from a star is torn to shreds as it\u2019s devoured by a black hole<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Astronomers have <\/strong>taken advantage of a black hole\u2019s messy eating habits to make measurements of the mass and spin of one of these objects for the first time, giving a potential clue about the nature of dark matter.<\/p>\n\n

When black holes gobble up stars, they create a huge outburst of radiation, known as a tidal disruption event, that can outshine the black hole\u2019s host galaxy. Astronomers observed one of these events, J2150, from an intermediate mass black hole, then compared observations to computer models showing that the black hole is 10,000 solar masses in size.<\/p>\n\n

They were also able to determine the spin of the black hole \u2013a key measurement to astrophysicsts investigating whether dark matter is made of hypothetical particles known as ultralight bosons.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u201cIf those particles exist and have masses in a certain range, they will prevent an intermediatemass black hole from having a fast spin,\u201d says Nicholas Stone from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who took part in the investigation.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cYet J2150\u2019s black hole is spinning fast. So, our spin measurement rules out a broad class of ultralight boson theories, showcasing the value of black holes as extraterrestrial laboratories for particle physics.\u201d https:\/\/en.huji.ac.il\/en<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Photos: ILLUSTRATION, NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Astronomers learn from a black hole\u2019s messy eating habits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5420,"featured_media":25508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"","purple_seq_number":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"","purple_source_article":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"","purple_source_issue":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"November-2021","purple_external_id":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"November-2021-27191b2b-e789-49c6-9313-22e94ad3b2c6","purple_issue_code":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000086546||","purple_android_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.198","purple_ios_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.198","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/10\/89PZAN625I93574NY8VCL35OBOLM-1.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"maya.hack@immediate.co.uk","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/maya-hackimmediate-co-uk\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/10\/89PZAN625I93574NY8VCL35OBOLM-1.jpg",1519,714,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/10\/89PZAN625I93574NY8VCL35OBOLM-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/10\/89PZAN625I93574NY8VCL35OBOLM-1-300x141.jpg",300,141,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/10\/89PZAN625I93574NY8VCL35OBOLM-1-768x361.jpg",768,361,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/10\/89PZAN625I93574NY8VCL35OBOLM-1-1024x481.jpg",800,376,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/10\/89PZAN625I93574NY8VCL35OBOLM-1.jpg",1519,714,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2021\/10\/89PZAN625I93574NY8VCL35OBOLM-1.jpg",1519,714,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"maya.hack@immediate.co.uk","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/maya-hackimmediate-co-uk\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Astronomers learn from a black hole\u2019s messy eating habits","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5420"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25504"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25854,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25504\/revisions\/25854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}