Need to study a black hole? Do it here on Earth!

William Atkins
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 18:17

Science - Space

Japanese researchers have successfully created conditions that exist just outside a black hole—at the accretion disk. With this pioneering method, astronomers will be able to learn more about the physics of black holes.


The October 19, 2009 ScienceNOW Daily News article “Black Hole Conditions, Right Here on Earth” talks about the research performed by Shinsuke Fujioka and colleagues at Osaka University in Japan.

The article states that the team of Japanese researchers “… has created conditions analogous to those found outside of a black hole by blasting a plastic pellet with high-energy laser beams. The advance should sharpen insights into the behavior of matter and energy in extreme conditions.”

The Japanese researchers simultaneously aimed twelve high-energy laser beams toward a small plastic pellet.

When the laser beams were shot it caused the pellet to implode. A hot, dense core of plasma was then created.

The researchers then allowed some of the resulting radiation (x-rays) to impinge on a pellet of silicon, which is commonly found in the accretion disks of black holes.

The x-rays photoionized the silicon (that is, the process by which high-energy photons within x-rays eject one or more electrons from the silicon atoms), which simulated the emissions observed by astronomers when looking at accretion disks outside of faraway black holes.

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