Surprised by a new type of black hole that emits light from its dark spot, scientists say it may actually be a new type of cosmic entity.
This mysterious cosmic object, a theoretical construct emerging from a computer simulation model, points out that there may be celestial bodies in space that are hidden from even the best telescopes on Earth.
Pierre Heidmann of Johns Hopkins University in the USA, who led the research, said in a statement:
“We were very surprised… The object looks exactly like a black hole, but light comes out of its dark spot.”
The researchers describe the object they call a “topological soliton” in a new study to be published in the academic journal Physical Review D, The Independent reports.
Scientists have explored the possibility of other objects in space that, when observed with ultra-sensitive sensors on Earth, have similar gravitational effects and can be detected as black holes.
Black holes are collapsed stars with such a dense gravitational field that not even light can escape its gravity.
The detection of gravitational waves in 2015 revolutionized the world of astrophysics, confirming the existence of black holes.
This detection showed that light revolves around black holes at a certain distance from the center of black holes, just as the Earth orbits the Sun.
This distance sets the edge of the black hole’s “shadow”, causing any incoming light to fatally hit what scientists call the “event horizon.”
On the other hand, scientists said that the topological soliton distorts space just like a black hole, but does not behave like a black hole.
In the simulation, it was found that the soliton mixes and diffuses weak rays of light, which would not be able to escape the strong gravitational force if it were a “real” black hole.
In several scenarios where the researchers used photographs of space, they placed a black hole and topological soliton in front of the lens as if they were taken with a camera.
In the simulations, it was seen that the soliton behaved differently, while both cosmic entities produced distorted pictures due to their gravitational effects.
Dr. “Light bends strongly, but instead of being absorbed like in a black hole, it is scattered in strange motions and comes back to us chaotically at one point,” Heidmann said.
“We don’t see a dark spot. We see a lot of blur, which means the light is swirling around this strange object like crazy.”
The researchers said that while this study is not a prediction of new objects in space, it could serve as the best model for what such objects look like compared to black holes.
Although the object is still theoretical, the fact that scientists can create it using mathematical equations and show what it looks like using simulations indicates that there may be celestial objects hidden from even the best telescopes on Earth.
“How do you know what’s in front of you isn’t a black hole? We don’t have a good way to test this. Examining hypothetical objects like topological solitons will also contribute to our understanding of this,” said Ibrahima Bah, another author of the study.
