Using the XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope, astronomers have discovered that the supermassive black hole, already known for its mysterious behavior, has exhibited another strange phenomenon.. Scientists believe a white dwarf star that lies extremely close to a black hole is causing increasingly frequent bursts of high-energy light.. This makes the white dwarf the closest known object to the event horizon of a black hole.. The study was published in the journal Nature, writes Space.

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Scientists back in 2018 first discovered that the supermassive black hole 1ES 1927+654 (its mass is 1 million times greater than that of the Sun), located at a distance of about 270 million light years from us, has strange behavior. The cloud of plasma surrounding the black hole, known as the corona, disappeared and then reappeared. It was something astronomers had never seen before around a black hole..

Things got even weirder when astronomers discovered bursts of X-rays emanating from the vicinity of black hole 1ES 1927+654 at an accelerating frequency.. Within two years, the frequency of these high-energy flashes of light increased from once every 18 minutes to once every 7 minutes. This is also unprecedented behavior for a black hole..

For a short time, the corona of the black hole 1ES 1927+654 was the brightest source of X-rays visible in space.. Therefore, astronomers decided to find out the cause of this phenomenon and they presented the results of the study on January 13 of this year.

Scientists believe X-rays create a cloud of fast-moving plasma in the vicinity of black holes. This high-energy light is much less likely to escape from locations further away from black holes, where cooler plasma moves more slowly.

Astronomers have determined that what is causing the X-rays is just a few million kilometers from the event horizon of a supermassive black hole.. The event horizon is the invisible boundary around every black hole where gravity becomes so strong that not even light can escape back into space..

Scientists have proposed two theories that explain the strange behavior of the black hole 1ES 1927+654.

Although this white dwarf is very close to the black hole, astronomers believe that it will not be destroyed by the black hole or consumed by it for a long time.. The fact is that the white dwarf sheds its outer layers and this pushes it back and keeps it relatively far from the event horizon of the black hole.

White dwarfs are called dead stars, because they are the remains of dead stars similar to the Sun.. Our home star will also become a white dwarf in about 5 billion years.. White dwarfs are very small stars, the size of Earth, and at the same time extremely dense, and therefore difficult for black holes to quickly destroy, scientists say.

The study's authors say that if there really is a white dwarf orbiting the black hole, then this is the closest known object that has been discovered near a black hole.. Now scientists intend to see this white dwarf using gravitational wave detectors.

Focus has already written that astronomers discovered an unusual phenomenon while studying another massive black hole. It is associated with the destruction of stars.

Focus also wrote about what happened over half a century to the US flags that NASA astronauts left on the Moon.