CAMBRIDGE, BRITAIN — Astronomers have found a novel way to explore the regions around a black hole.<br /><br />In a paper published in Nature Astronomy, researchers say that they were able to use x-ray echoes around a black hole to map the celestial body's surroundings.<br /><br />According to the University of Cambridge's news release that black hole's gravitational force is extremely powerful and causes massive spatial distortions around itself.<br /><br />As objects caught in the black hole pull are drawn to the event horizon, they heat up and radiate x-rays that "echo and reverberate" against nearby gas.<br /><br />Using the European Space Agency's XMM x-ray observatory, the team was able to observe x-ray echoes of a black hole at the heart of a distant galaxy.<br /><br />The echoes allowed the team to determine the spin and mass of the black hole.<br /><br />The team also made the unexpected discovery that a black hole's the corona--or hot electrons above the accretion disk--changed its size often and quickly.<br /><br />By raising and lowering the roof of the comic echo chamber, the corona's shift in size affected the light echoes and changed their quality.
