An X-ray has been detected for the first time behind a black hole

When Stanford University researchers analyzed the X-rays from the supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy 800 million light-years away, they found an unusual pattern. As far as we can tell, the black hole emits these rays into the universe around it.

Dan Wilkins, who made the observations, saw several thrilling, but not unusual, bright X-ray flares. Then, the telescopes caught a surprise: more X-ray flashes that were smaller, later, and had different 'colors' than the bright flares.

A phenomenon of this kind has been theorized before, which is explained by the fact that gas will follow a supermassive black hole and produce brilliant flares of X-ray emission.

The flares subsided, and we observed short X-ray flashes. Flares were reflected from the far edge of the disc, which was curled around the black hole by its powerful gravitational field. 

As the flares reverberated off the gases plunging into the black hole, the sound of those flares could be heard echoing off the surface as they reverberated off the gas.

The theory suggests that X-rays reflected from behind a black hole may explain these bright echoes, even though a rudimentary understanding of black holes suggests this is an odd place for light to originate.

“The light that enters that black hole does not come out, so we shouldn't be able to see anything behind it,” Wilkins explained, a research scientist at Stanford's Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory..'

' The other odd characteristic of the black hole is what makes it possible to observe this phenomenon. “We can see it because it warps space, bends light, and twists magnetic fields,” Wilkins explained.