NASA's Hubble Telescope captures black hole's 'shadow beams' spilling out

In a recent study, Astronomers have observed magnificent large-scale dark and light rays beaming out of the bright center of the IC 5063 galaxy with the help of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. According to the researchers an internal tube-shaped ring, or 'torus', of dusty material surrounding the active galaxy’s central black hole is casting its shadow into space. The study further revealed that the exchange of light and shadow may occur when light emitted by the supermassive black hole strikes the torus.

Light creates brilliant cone-shaped rays

The light streams through gaps in the torus and creates brilliant cone-shaped rays, the researchers said while adding that the denser patches in the torus block some of the light that casts long, dark shadows through the galaxy.

An official release by NASA quoted Dr. Peter Maksym, an astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as saying: "I’m most excited by the shadow of the torus idea because it’s a really cool effect that I don’t think we’ve seen before in images, although it has been hypothesized."

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"Scientifically, it's showing us something that is hard—usually impossible—to see directly. We know this phenomenon should happen, but in this case, we can see the effects throughout the galaxy. Knowing more about the geometry of the torus will have implications for anybody trying to understand the behavior of supermassive black holes and their environments. As a galaxy evolves, it is shaped by its central black hole," Maksym added.

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'Studying the torus is important'

The researchers further claimed that studying the torus is important because it funnels material toward the black hole. If the 'shadow' interpretation is accurate, the dark rays provide indirect evidence that the disk in IC 5063 could be very thin, which explains why light is leaking out all around the structure, the researchers said in the release.

Observations of similar black holes by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory detected X-rays leaking out of holes in the torus, making the structure appear like Swiss cheese, Maksym said. The holes may be caused by the disk being torqued by internal forces, causing it to warp, he added. It's possible that the warping creates big enough gaps for some of the light to shine through, and as the torus rotates, beams of light could sweep across the galaxy like lighthouse beams through the fog, he said.

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