Recently, a cosmic gas cloud showed signs of a mysterious heartbeat. Sitting in the Aquila constellation, the cloud somehow connects perfectly with a nearby black hole. This cloud was discovered by both the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. The team found that the cloud “beats” in rhythm with the small black hole. This black hole, however, is located roughly 100 lightyears from the cloud. The black hole is in a microquasar system called SS 433.
[Image via Outer Space/Shutterstock.com]The system also has a giant star, 30 times the size of our Sun. This microquasar eats up a lot of light, and orbits with this large star. As they orbit each other, the black hole pulls in matter from the star, causing an accretion disk around the black hole itself. Part of the matter from this star doesn’t drain into the black hole but shoots out high-speed particles and strong magnetic fields. The particles speed off like a jet, producing x-rays and gamma rays. Giving the quasar and cloud their heartbeat.