ISRO-IIT Guwahati team detects mysterious X-ray flickers from distant black hole

Guwahati, Aug. 18 -- Researchers from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati, in collaboration with Haifa University, Israel, have uncovered a pattern of X-ray signals emitted by a black hole nearly 28,000 light-years away.

The finding, made using India's multi-wavelength space observatory AstroSat, has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is being hailed as a breakthrough in black hole studies.

The stellar-mass black hole, known as GRS 1915+105, has long fascinated astronomers because of its extreme variability and high-energy emissions.

Using AstroSat's precision instruments, the team observed that the object's X-ray brightness oscilla...