Nothing is faster than light. But researchers have discovered a beam of energy in space that appears to be seven times the speed of light.
Pasadena – Researchers have made an extraordinary discovery in space: They have found a giant beam of energy that appears to break the laws of physics. The beam appears to travel seven times faster than light, measurements by the Hubble Space Telescope have shown.
That’s actually impossible: Light moves in a vacuum at a speed of 1,079,252,820 kilometers per hour – it couldn’t be faster, as Albert Einstein demonstrated more than 100 years ago in his special theory of relativity.
But how is it possible that the particle beam discovered seems to break the laws of physics? Not at all, write the researchers in a study on the subject. It’s an optical illusion, a phenomenon called superluminal motion. This phenomenon occurs when the particles move almost at the speed of light: in the current case, the researchers were able to demonstrate that the energy beam travels at 99.97 percent of the speed of light (about 1.07 billion km /h). The research team led by Kunal P. Mooley of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena conducted the study in the diary Nature released.
Space: The particle beam appears to break the laws of physics
The starting point of the remarkable particle beam was a giant collision of two neutron stars. The explosive event in space was discovered in August 2017, marking the first time both gravitational waves and gamma rays have been measured from the merger of two neutron stars, according to the US space agency NASA. The aftermath of this merger was observed by 70 telescopes around the world and in space, including the Hubble Space Telescope, which was trained on the scene two days after the explosion.
What happened? The two neutron stars collapsed into a black hole whose massive gravity began to attract material. The material formed a rapidly rotating disk, producing beams of energy emanating from the disk’s poles.
For several years, researchers have been analyzing data collected by Hubble. “I am thrilled that ‘Hubble’ has given us such precise measurements,” said Kunal P. Mooley, lead author of the study. “It took months of careful data analysis to make this measurement,” says Jay Anderson of the Space Telescope Science Institute.
After Cosmic Collapse: Does the Energy Beam Travel Faster Than Light?
But how do the researchers explain the phenomenon that appears to make the energy beam faster than light? The energy beam approaches Earth at nearly the speed of light, so the light it emits later travels a shorter distance. “Essentially, the jet is chasing its own light,” says the NASA website. In reality, more time has elapsed between the emission of light by the beam than the observer thinks, which is why the speed is overestimated. (form)
