The researchers confirmed that the black hole is spinning, which causes what is known as the Lense-Thirring effect.
“But if you have a rapidly rotating black hole, the space-time around it is not symmetric — the spinning black hole is dragging all of the space-time around with it … it squishes down the space-time, and it sort of looks like a football,” she said.
Black holes and galactic historyKnowing the mass and the spin of a black hole helps astronomers understand how the black hole might have formed and evolved, Daly said.
However, a black hole that was made with accretion of surrounding gas would see a high spin value.
“The question of whether our central galactic black hole rotates or not, or how fast it rotates, is quite important,” Stojkovic said in an email.
Persons:
NASA’s Chandra, Ruth Daly, Daly, ” Daly, “ We’re, ”, “, Dejan Stojkovic, ” Stojkovic
Organizations:
CNN, Royal Astronomical Society, Penn State University, University, Buffalo