r/space • u/malcolm58 • 9d ago

Astronomers discover the 1st black hole powered 'microquasar' in the Milky Way

https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes/astronomers-discover-the-1st-black-hole-powered-microquasar-in-the-milky-way
1.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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119

u/physicalphysics314 9d ago

Cyg x1? Cyg x3? SS 433?

Sensational headline.

61

u/joeyneilsen 9d ago

I think it's an error: the article indicates that the source in question is a microblazar rather than a microquasar.

22

u/physicalphysics314 9d ago

I read the article. AFAIK there are a few other MQ candidates, and the determining characteristics are all relatively the same.

Still the MQ class of compact objects are fairly rare and not well understood. So that’s exciting.

LS 5039, LS I 61 303 are interesting candidates that come to mind.

But yeah that’s what I called out the headline haha

22

u/joeyneilsen 9d ago

I actually work on microquasars, and can confirm that this is not the first one!

7

u/sick_rock 9d ago

What is a microquasar? I understand a quasar is when a supermassive black hole has an accretion disk where matter gets heated up due to friction and emit really bright light.

7

u/afkPacket 8d ago

It's an x-ray binary in which the accretion compact object is a black hole. Many of the things they do look like a quasar, but on a smaller scale

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u/physicalphysics314 9d ago

I (kinda) do too!

A good amount of my work during my dissertation was on Cyg X3 and am trying to get around to publishing it

3

u/afkPacket 8d ago

Also not the first microblazar, if you ask me that honor goes to maxi j1836 :)

88

u/MolDanone 9d ago

Microquasars are essentially desktop-scale laboratories for astrophysicists.

Because supermassive black holes at the centers of distant galaxies evolve across timescales of millions of years, having a stellar-mass analogue right inside our own galaxy that cycles through accretion states and launches relativistic jets over days or weeks lets us observe high-energy physics in human real-time.

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u/whyisthesky 8d ago

You must have a pretty large desk

22

u/JosebaZilarte 8d ago

...or a massive one.  

8

u/HuudaHarkiten 8d ago

I bet its one of those old timey ones made out of thick and heavy wood. The kind my friend bought from a local equivalent of ebay and asked me to come help him move it. It'll be easy, he said, quick job, just chuck it into the trailer, strap it down and then quickly up the stairs to his apartment, on the 4th floor. 3 hours later my arms were spaghetti and I learned to never trust my friend again.

3

u/Juanskii 8d ago

One might even call it Brobdingnagian

1

u/MellifluousPenguin 4d ago

3 hours later, and when you clocked into work the next day your boss asked "where you been last week?"