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BLACK HOLES

A fraction of a light second away

Black holes absorb everything and emit nothing, yet relativistic jets of plasma are observed to emanate from systems hosting accreting black holes. We now know exactly how far from the black hole these processes take place.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of a black hole accreting matter from a companion star.

Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo.

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Correspondence to Nikolaos D. Kylafis.

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Kylafis, N. A fraction of a light second away. Nat Astron 1, 827–828 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-017-0320-0

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