National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA scientists and their international partners using the new Japanese Suzaku satellite have collected a startling new set of black hole observations, revealing details of twisted space and warped time never before seen with such precision.

The observations include clocking the speed of a black hole’s spin rate and measuring the angle at which matter pours into the void, as well as evidence for a wall of X-ray light pulled back and flattened by gravity.

The findings rely on a special feature in the light emitted close to the black hole, called the “broad iron K line,” once doubted by some scientists because of poor resolution in earlier observations, now unambiguously revealed as a true measure of a black hole’s crushing gravitational force. This technique can be exploited in future X-ray missions.

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Things had been so going well until about two weeks ago. After my first test with the on-board X-ray source, I rested for a while, and then the NASA folks wanted me to take some more calibration data. Before I knew it, there was gas from the liquid helium where it shouldn’t have been. I gave the NASA folks my temperature readings to let them know what was going on. They devised a way to get rid of it, which seemed to work OK. But it happened again, and they used their fix again.

But on Sunday it happened twice more. There was enough build-up of the helium gas outside the helium tank that it effectively put the liquid helium (at 1.3 kelvin) directly in contact with the solid neon (at 17 kelvin), which is pretty warm compared to the helium. Then I watched as the liquid helium boiled away. That was the worst few minutes of my life!!! I can’t operate without the liquid helium.

Everyone back home is so disappointed. Both the Japanese and the Americans will work on figuring out what went wrong. But they said they are really proud of what I did, and they learned so much. And I had such a great time – I got to see so much, and the scientists, engineers, and technicians both back home in the U.S. and in Japan were great to work with.

The Suzaku mission will continue with its other instruments, and they’ll continue to run some of my electronics for as long as they can. And the other instruments will do some great science. So I hope you’ll be watching for it.

But for me, sadly, this is the end of the road.

Today they turned on my refrigerator, which got me down to 60 millikelvin, and then had me look at the artificial source of X-rays that I brought along. I saw them just fine. Because I talk with people in Japan only once an orbit, my NASA friends did have to wait about 90 minutes before they could see the data. But I’m working as good up here as I did during all those tests I went through on the ground. I heard alot of cheers in the background as they looked at the data I sent down to them. Everyone is really happy – probably happier than when we launched!

How can X-rays be “artificial”? Ok, they’re real x-rays, but not from a source in the sky. They’re from a little radioactive source that they included with me for just this purpose. It emits X-rays at a specific energy. It’s safe, and allows everyone to make sure that I’m working properly.

Now I have to stare at this source for a few days! Hopefully I’ll start looking at objects in the sky next week.