Jun 5 2001
From The Space Library
At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, NASA scientists Patricia T. Boyd and Alan P. Smale, both working at NASA’s GSFC, announced that they had uncovered a predictable mathematical pattern governing the release of x-ray light from binary star systems. Boyd and Smale had tracked the emission of x-rays from three binary star systems over a period of several years, determining that the number of days between the low points of emission in each binary system was always based on multiples of a single constant number. The discovery countered the common perception among scientists that flares and bursts happen completely at random, suggesting that a repeatable process occurs when swirling matter pours into a black hole, thereby creating an emission. According to Smale, the ongoing challenge would be to combine this knowledge of a pattern, while still considering the many random factors. “The interplay between periodic and random components in these systems is a puzzle,” Smale concluded. (NASA, “Method Uncovered in Madness of Black Hole and Neutron Star Eruptions,” news release 01-111, 5 June 2001.)
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