A team of International scientists, led by Indian scientists, have found a very distinct signature of the cosmic X-rays to identify the boundary around the black holes that separately identifies them from other objects in the cosmos that are comparable in mass and size.

This discovery is yet the strongest steady signature of the smaller, but more extreme stellar- mass black holes to date, from the cosmic X-rays observed with a satellite. A black hole is an cosmic object without a hard surface which was predicted by Einstein#39;s theory of General Relativity. It is packed within an invisible boundary, called an event horizon, from within which nothing, not even light, can escape.

In the current study, the scientists analysed archival data from the now decommissioned astronomy satellite Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer, and have identified the effect of the lack of hard surface in black holes on their observed X-ray emission. From this analyses, they have found a powerful signature of accreting stellar-mass black hole.

quot;The study has found by far the strongest steady signature of smaller, but more extreme, black holes to date, from the cosmic X-rays observed with a satellite,quot; Bhattacharyya, from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, told in an email.