It is the first time that humans have observed the spin of a black hole. The breakthrough was made possible as China has opened up its major technological infrastructure to global scientists. And international cooperation is becoming essential for advancing technological innovation.
An international team, including researchers from National Astronomical Observatories of China, recently found that the stellar-mass black hole in the Cygnus X-1binary system has a mass 21 times the mass of the Sun and rotates at a speed close to the speed of light.
Now, it turns out that the quasar nearest to Earth, located 600 million light-years away in a galaxy called Markarian 231, is actually built around two twirling black holes. It’s a first-of-its-kind type of find, and scientists think there could be a lot more quasars with binary hearts out there.
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