Astronomers have watched matter sink into the mouth of a black hole at the speed of light, reconfirming a key prediction made by Einstein. In 1915, Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicted that when matter came close enough to a black hole, the tremendous gravitational force resulting from the space-time crack would force it to break out of its circular orbit and plunge directly into the black hole.

Now X-ray observations with NASA’s NuSTAR and NICER space telescopes have finally confirmed the existence of this “subduction zone.” The team behind the discovery, led by researchers from Oxford’s Department of Physics, say studying it could reveal some fundamental secrets about black holes and the nature of space-time. The researchers published their findings May 16 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“This is the first look at how plasma stripped from the outer edge of a star undergoes its final fall. [центр] Lead author Andrew Mummery, a physicist at the University of Oxford, said in a statement that a black hole is a process occurring in a system about 10,000 light-years away. “What’s really exciting is that there are so many black holes in the galaxy, and now we have a powerful new technique that can use them to study the strongest known gravitational fields.”

Black holes are born from the collapse of giant stars and grow from gas, dust, stars and other black holes. Space monsters have such a strong gravitational pull that nothing (not even light) can escape their mouths.

However, this does not mean that black holes cannot be seen. Active black holes are surrounded by accretion disks, which consist of gas clouds and huge clumps of material released from stars and heated to very high temperatures by friction as they spiral around the mouth of the black hole.

Researchers pointed two space telescopes at a black hole called MAXI J1820+070, located in a binary system about 10,000 light-years from Earth, and detected X-rays emitted by burning material in its accretion disk. After fitting the X-ray data into mathematical models, they found that the models matched only if they included light from matter in the bottom region, confirming its existence.

“Einstein’s theory predicted that this final decline would occur, but this is the first time we have been able to show that it has occurred,” Mummery said. “Think of it like a river turning into a waterfall; So far we have looked at the river. “This is our first time seeing the waterfall.”

By collecting and studying more light from this cosmic cascade, researchers say they will gain unprecedented understanding of the extreme conditions around black holes. Subduction zones lie beyond the event horizon of black holes; This is the point of no return where gravity becomes so strong that not even light can escape.

“We think this is an exciting new development in the study of black holes, allowing us to explore the final region around them. Only then will we be able to fully understand the gravitational force,” Mummery said. “This final plunge of the plasma occurs at the very edge of the black hole and shows that matter is responding most strongly to gravity.”