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According to the article, the note's been sounding for 2.5 billion years. That is 7.9*10¹⁶ sec. The ~220/2⁵⁷Hz note they're talking about is 1.5*10^-15Hz. They aquired x-ray imaging data for 53hrs, that gave them at most, 120 ripples in the resulting image. That upper limit to the number of wavelengths captured is if the ejecta from the black hole's jets travels at the speed of light. The number of ripples seen in the image, divided by 120, gives the ejecta's velocity.

The ripples are due to the velocity redshifts seen in the radiation from the gas clouds. The gravitational redshifts and positions can be used to find the binding energy, or force constant for the center of mass of the assembly. It can be seen as a reduced mass oscillating according to F=k*x, where k is the gravitational force constant and x is the position of ripple peaks. That oscillator is being driven by the ejecta from the black hole jets; the energy of which is F*x, or 1/2kx².

"All I see is a lot of buzzwords in what you write. I guess my math degrees, physics minor, and those astronomy courses I took didn't do me much good.

It's a shame.

120 ripples in the resulting image

Teach me.

WTF are ripples?

Is this image you are talking about a simple time lapse image acquired over the 53 hours; or is it more like a race track photo finish image?

ML/NJ