After a supermassive black hole effectively “burped up” a star that it had “eaten” three years prior, astronomers are left perplexed. When a tiny star in a galaxy 665 million light years from Earth accidentally approached a black hole in 2018, scientists saw it shatter into a million pieces. At the time, this was not unusual.
Black hole
However, astronomers were “totally taken by surprise” almost three years prior in June 2021 when the same black hole lighted up the sky by shooting forth stellar stuff. Experts found this to be particularly odd considering that the black hole hadn’t consumed anything fresh since its feast in 2018.
Nobody has ever witnessed something like this, so it completely caught us off guard, according to Yvette Cendes, the study’s lead author. Researchers still don’t know why there was a delay of nearly three years, but the results of Dr. Cendes’ study, which were published this week in the Astrophysical Journal. Revealed that the black hole was now regurgitating star debris at half the speed of light.
Dr. Cendes remarked, “It’s as if this black hole has suddenly started burping forth a chunk of material from the star it ate years ago.
NASA
According to NASA, a black hole is a region in space where gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape. They typically develop from the remains of massive dead stars or supernova explosions.
The co-author of this work and Harvard University professor of astronomy Edo Berger said that his group has been investigating tidal disruption events (TDEs). For decades and that debris is frequently ejected from them when a star is being sucked into a black hole.
After three years of radio silence, it has suddenly drastically lit up to become one of the most radio luminous TDEs ever seen.
He continued by stating that they had never witnessed “such a significant wait between the feeding and the outflow.”
Additionally, the star material that is being “burped” out is moving at a rather extraordinary speed of 50% the speed of light.
Usually, the stuff that TDEs spew out moves at a rate of 10% the speed of light.
“Whether this actually happens more frequently. We have simply not been looking at TDEs late enough in their maturation,” the team now want to find out.
What astonomers said?
A tiny star was torn to pieces in October 2018 after it strayed too close to a black hole in a galaxy 665 million light years from Earth. Although it may sound exciting. Astronomers who occasionally see these violent episodes while watching the night sky were not surprised by the event.
But almost three years after the massacre. The same black hole is lighting up the skies once more, and experts insist it hasn’t ingested anything new.
The phenomenon’s primary author and research associate at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA). Yvette Cendes, states, “This caught us completely by surprise – no one has ever observed anything like this before.”
Astrophysical Journal
The astonomer comes to the conclusion that the black hole is currently spewing material that is moving at half the speed of light. But they are unaware of the reason for the outflow’s long delay. The findings, which were published this week in the Astrophysical Journal. Might make it easier for researchers to comprehend how black holes consume matter. Which Cendes likens to “burping” after a meal.
The team discovered the unexpected outburst while reviewing recent tidal disruption events (TDEs). Which occur when approaching stars are spaghettified by black holes.
The black hole has suddenly come back to life in June 2021. According to radio data collected by the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico. Cendes and the team hurried to investigate the incident further.
Nobody has ever seen anything like this, so it really caught us off guard.
The Center for Astrophysics’ Yvette Cendes
When something unexpected is discovered, Cendes say. We applied for Director’s Discretionary Time on numerous telescopes. Which is when you can’t wait for the typical cycle of telescope proposals to observe it. All of the applications were accepted right away.”
The team used the VLA, the ALMA Observatory in Chile. MeerKAT in South Africa, the Australian Telescope Compact Array in Australia, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory in space to gather observations of the TDE, designated AT2018hyz.
Conclusion
The most startling observations of the TDE came through radio.
When they happen, TDEs are well known for generating light. Gravitational forces start to stretch, or spaghettify, a star as it gets closer to a black hole. Astronomers can see a flash from millions of light years distant because the elongated material eventually spirals around the black hole and heats up.
Every now and then, some spaghetti-fied stuff is launched into space. Black holes are described by astronomers as messy eaters because not everything they try to eat makes it into their jaws.
This is the first instance in which the time between feeding and outflow has been so delayed, according to Berger. The following step is to investigate whether this actually occurs more frequently and we have simply not been observing TDEs at an appropriate stage of their development.
