Astronomers have viewed the outer region of an active supermassive black hole's accretion disk, thereby improving our understanding of these feeding cosmic monsters.
Emission lines like those studied by the team occur when an atom absorbs energy and adopts what physicists call an"excited state." Eventually, these atoms have to return to their lowest energy state, or"ground state." That drop back to ground state releases light that, because every element has a unique set of energy levels, is at wavelength and energy characteristic to an atom of a specific element.
Emission lines from stars and other sources take the appearance of thin spikes in spectra, but the violent conditions around a supermassive black hole cause accretion disk emission lines to adopt a different appearance. As one side of an accretion disk moves towards Earth, the other side moves away. This results in short wavelengths of light on the side rotating towards us and longer wavelengths of light on the side of the accretion disk moving away.
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