Far   off   into the dark sky , a satellite find out   something   unexpected . A aim that looks like it could be for astronomic archery , accomplished with a black hole bullseye . The system photographed is called   V404 Cygni , which consists of a dynamic couple of stellar objects : a black hollow and a Sun - similar star . Together , the binary pair   produce   this   heavenly target .

The leading social organisation is the upshot of a black mess eruption so brawny that it skipped   the low - energy , visible spectrum of light and emitted   high - vitality X - electron beam lighter .   Oddly , the black hole appears to have emitted three   rather trenchant rings of hug drug - rays , but the true statement is actually quite dissimilar . The beam of light are all from the same source .

You might think of black holes as being sky " sinkholes " that only suck matter in , as even light ca n’t escape their   gravitative clutches . So how could go - ray escape this one ’s grasp ?

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The reply is in the accumulation disk around the fateful hole . The bootleg hollow is in a binary organization with its Sun - like star and   as they circulate   each other in their celestial dance , the black hole ’s sinewy gravitative attraction at times draw up some of the genius ’s outer layers of dust and gas .

This stolen star affair swirls around the black hole in an accretion disk before being sucked into it . As the matter swirls around the saucer , it gravel faster and creates rubbing against the other detritus particles , make the magnetic disk to heat up . finally , the dust becomes so   red-hot that it releases some of its energy in a spectacular X - beam burst .

base on the gif , you might think that the accretion disc releases three   speedy - fire X - ray bursts . Astrophysicists , however , think that there ’s a mere possibility . A detritus cloud between the black maw and the artificial satellite that saw it would deform the X - ray of light burst , refocus some of the light that was travel to miss the photographing satellite   back   towards it . This misrepresented beam of twinkle seem , from Earth , to be an entirely separate ring from the original X - light beam burst .

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Diagram shows how each ring is stimulate by X - rays bouncing off unlike dust clouds . Sebastian Heinz / University of Wisconsin - Madison .

Since there are three doughnut , there must be three cloud of dust between us and the black-market jam . The largest ring is estimated to be roughly a third of the diameter of the Moon .

These images of cosmic tintinnabulation are some of the best examples of diffract ray forming rings ever taken . They were snap by NASA’sSwift satellite ,   which specialise in photographing high-pitched - energy wavelengths of light like   ex - rays   and gamma - ray . " The flexible preparation of Swift observations has given us the best dust - scattered Adam - ray mob mental image ever seen , " Andrew   Beardmore , from theUniversity of Leicester , tell . " With these observation we can make a detailed study of the commonly invisible interstellar dust in the commission of this black hole . "

Central GIF : Three X - ray ring overspread out from the black-market hole   epicentre . NASA .