Black holes in space remain a mystery. One of their many secrets is why they get "angry". China will soon launch a space telescope in a bid to find out.

 

太空中的黑洞仍然是个迷，其中之一是为什么它们会“狂暴”。中国不久将发射一台太空望远镜一窥究竟。
 

 

The Hard X-ray Modulation¹ Telescope (HXMT), developed by Chinese scientists, will observe the black holes and neutron² stars.

 

"Black holes will be the focus of our observation since they are very interesting, and can generate various types of radiation, including X-rays and high energy cosmic rays, as well as strong jets," says Zhang Shuangnan, the lead scientist of HXMT and director of the Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

 

Scientists are curious about what the black holes are doing. So far about 20 black holes have been found in our galaxy³. "We hope our telescope can discover more black holes. We also hope to better observe the black holes already discovered," says Zhang.

 

A black hole is a region of spacetime showing such strong gravitational effects that nothing - not even particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light - can escape from inside it.

 

There are two kinds of these "space monsters": black holes of stellar mass and supermassive black holes. Black holes of stellar mass are thought to form when massive stars collapse⁴ at the end of their lifecycle. 

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