August 12, 2025

In a groundbreaking discovery, NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) has captured unusual signals from a black hole that pulses like a heartbeat—challenging long-held theories about how matter behaves near these cosmic giants.

The black hole, known as IGR J17091-3624, lies about 28,000 light-years from Earth and is part of a binary system where it draws matter from a nearby star. As this matter spirals inward, it forms an accretion disk and a superheated region called the corona, which emits intense X-rays.

Using IXPE’s advanced instruments, scientists measured a 9.1% polarization degree—a surprisingly high value that suggests the corona is viewed edge-on and may be shaped differently than current models predict. This finding could reshape our understanding of how black holes generate X-rays and interact with surrounding matter.

“This black hole dims and brightens with the rhythm of a heartbeat,” said Melissa Ewing, lead researcher from Newcastle University. “IXPE allowed us to study it in a completely new way.”

The corona, reaching temperatures of 1.8 billion°F, is one of the brightest X-ray sources in the sky. Yet, due to its distance and size, it remains invisible to traditional telescopes. IXPE’s ability to measure X-ray polarization offers a new lens into these hidden regions.

This discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that black holes may behave in more complex and varied ways than previously thought, opening new avenues for research in high-energy astrophysics.