Astrophysicists have found an unusual black hole: something severely deformed its disk

Back in 2018, scientists discovered a flare from the object MAXI J1820+070 - this is a binary system where the companion is

a star with a low mass similar to the Sun. There is also a black hole in the system: it is eight times heavier than our nearest star.

According to the authors of the new work, the flash from MAXIJ1820+070 was one of the three brightest X-ray transients ever observed. This is influenced by its proximity to Earth and its convenient location outside the Milky Way avoidance zone.

Researchers visualized MAXI J1820 + 070,to understand how X-rays from a black hole affect the surrounding matter and the accretion disk, heating it to a temperature of about ten thousand Kelvin and causing it to emit visible light.

During further observations it turned out thatthree months after the flare, oscillations began in the optical light curve, which lasted about 17 hours. Despite this, the authors note, the X-ray component of the radiation was stable and did not change the optical curve in any way.

According to astrophysicists, this may be due to the fact that the x-ray radiation has seriously deformed the disk. At the same time, the area of ​​the disc increased, which caused an increase in the brightness of the object.

Scientists have never seen such a phenomenon in a system where there is a black hole and a small mass donor. 

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