CNN Central News & Network-ITDC India Epress/ITDC News Bhopal: Astronomers studying some of the Universe’s most energetic objects have uncovered new clues about the sources of X-ray emission from blazars, offering a better understanding of the extreme physical conditions surrounding active galaxies.
Blazars are a powerful class of active galaxies whose centres are powered by supermassive black holes. As matter falls toward these black holes, enormous amounts of energy can be released, while relativistic particle jets are launched at speeds approaching that of light. When these jets are directed almost toward Earth, the objects can appear exceptionally bright.
A particularly energetic group known as TeV blazars produces very-high-energy gamma rays reaching tera-electron-volt energies. Because their jets point nearly toward Earth, their X-ray emission is generally dominated by radiation from the jet, making it difficult to isolate signals originating from other regions, including the accretion disk around the black hole.
Researchers from the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, studied four classical TeV blazars—Mrk 421, Mrk 501, PG 1553+113 and PKS 2155-304—using observations from NASA’s NICER and NuSTAR space telescopes. ARIES identifies multi-wavelength flux, polarization and spectral variability of blazars as a major research area of scientist Alok C. Gupta.
The study of X-ray radiation from these objects can help researchers investigate how particles are accelerated, how radiation is produced and how the powerful jets behave under extreme conditions. ARIES has also reported recent 2026 research on the X-ray spectral variability of the TeV blazar PG 1553+113 using XMM-Newton observations.
Such observations provide important information about the mechanisms that power active galaxies and help astronomers better understand the behaviour of matter and radiation in the vicinity of supermassive black holes.
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