Markarian 421

Table of Contents☰

About Markarian 421:

It is a supermassive black hole firing a jet of high-energy particles aimed directly at Earth.
It is about 400 million light-years away from the earth
It is located in the constellation Ursa Major.
Characteristics of supermassive black hole
- They have a mass greater than about 50,000 times the mass of our sun.
- These black holes are far too large to have formed from the gravitational collapse of a single star.
- These are always found at the center of a galaxy and almost all galaxies have a supermassive black hole at its center.
Key facts about the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)
- It is an international collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency.
- It studies the most extreme and mysterious objects in the universe – supernova remnants, supermassive black holes, and dozens of other high-energy objects.
- It is the first satellite dedicated to measuring polarized X-rays from objects, such as neutron stars and supermassive black holes, to reveal previously hidden details of the universe.

Q) What is black hole?

A black hole is a region in space where the gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from it once it crosses a certain boundary called the event horizon. As a result, black holes are invisible to the naked eye and can only be detected indirectly by their effect on nearby matter and radiation.

Source: A supermassive black hole is firing high-energy particle jet towards Earth