Black holes become bright in X-rays (the type of light XMM-Newton observes) when they start actively accreting matter. The matter might come from a binary companion (for stellar mass black holes) or from galactic gas and dust for super-massive black holes. #BlackHoleWeek⚫️
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When falling onto the black hole the matter gets so hot that it starts to shine brightly in X-rays. Additionally magnetic fields and hot electrons may energize the photons further making them visible in hard X-rays that can be observed with @ESA_Integral!
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According to the "no-hair theorem", astrophysical black holes are fully described by their mass and their spin. So we only need to measure these two parameters to fully describe any black hole. Can't be that hard, can it?
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Well, it is actually not that easy, as we cannot put a black hole on a scale or observe its spin/rotation directly. But we have some tricks up our sleeves to measure black hole properties anyway! Stay tuned this week to learn more! #BlackHoleWeek
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This week we will learn how XMM-Newton measures the spin of a black hole, how we look far into the past of our universe, how X-rays & images from the @ehtelescope are related, & how we can use timing information to weigh a black hole. Let us know if you have any questions!
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