Death Spiral: a Black Hole Spins On Its Side - 'Completely Unexpected'

Long-time Slashdot reader IHTFISP brings this report from SciTechDaily: Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, found that the axis of rotation of a black hole in a binary system is tilted more than 40 degrees relative to the axis of stellar orbit. The finding challenges current theoretical models of black hole formation. The observation by the researchers from Tuorla Observatory in Finland is the first reliable measurement that shows a large difference between the axis of rotation of a black hole and the axis of a binary system orbit. The difference between the axes measured by the researchers in a binary star system called MAXI J1820+070 was more than 40 degrees.... [T]he researchers were able to determine the direction of the axis of rotation of the black hole very accurately. As the amount of gas falling from the companion star to the black hole later began to decrease, the system dimmed, and much of the light in the system came from the companion star. In this way, the researchers were able to measure the orbit inclination using spectroscopic techniques, and it happened to nearly coincide with the inclination of the ejections.... The results published in Science magazine open interesting prospects towards studies of black hole formation and evolution of such systems, as such extreme misalignment is hard to get in many black hole formation and binary evolution scenarios. "The difference of more than 40 degrees between the orbital axis and the black hole spin was completely unexpected. Scientists have often assumed this difference to be very small when they have modeled the behavior of matter in a curved time space around a black hole. The current models are already really complex, and now the new findings force us to add a new dimension to them," Poutanen states.

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