ESA Portal - ESA's Integral discovers hidden black holes

Media Centre

Press Releases ESA Television Launch Media Corner Exhibitions

Services

Calendar Publications Frequently asked questions ESA-sponsored Conferences Help Site Credits Portal terms of use Comments Subscribe

ESA's Integral discovers hidden black holes

20 October 2003

Back to article

An artist's impression of the mechanisms in an interacting binar

Download:

HI RES JPG (Size: 28 kb)

An artist's impression of the mechanisms in an interacting binary system. The supermassive companion star (on the right-hand side) ejects a lot of gas in the form of 'stellar wind'. The compact black hole orbits the star and, due to its strong gravitational attraction, collects a lot of the gas. Some of it is funnelled and accelerated into a hot disc. This releases a large amount of energy in all spectral bands, from gamma rays through to visible and infrared. However, the remaining gas surrounding the black hole forms a thick cloud which blocks most of the radiation. Only the very energetic gamma rays can escape and be detected by Integral.

Back to article

Download:

HI RES JPG (Size: 254 kb)

HI RES TIFF (Size: 241 kb)

Detecting the Universe's hot spots.

Credits: ESA. Illustration by Ducros

Science news release 21-2003 Integral overview XMM-Newton overview