Telescopes record A record of the last moments of a star through a black hole

Using binoculars from the European Southern Observatory (E.S.O.) And other bodies around the world, astronomers have seen a rare blast of light from a star shattered by a supermassive. Black hole. The event, known as the tidal disturbance event, is the closest such flare recorded in 215 million light-years from Earth to date and has been studied in unprecedented detail. The research is published today in the Royal Astronomical Society’s Monthly Notices.

Using telescopes from ESO and other organizations around the world, astronomers have observed a rare blast of light from a star shattered by a supermassive black hole. This video summarizes the findings. Credit: E.S.O.

“The idea of ​​a black hole ‘sucking’ a nearby star sounds like science fiction. “But the same thing happens in the event of a tidal breakdown,” says Matt Nicole, a lecturer and research fellow at the Royal Astronomical Society. University of Birmingham, UK, and lead author of the new study. But these tidal rupture events, where a star known as spaghetti is experienced as it is being sucked by a black hole, are rare and are not always easy to study. A team of researchers Very large telescope (VLT) and E.S.O. The new technology Te Ji Telescope (NTT) on a new flash of light last year near a supermassive black hole, to investigate in detail what happens when a star is eaten by a monster.

Astronomers know what should happen in theory. “When an unfortunate star wanders near a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy, the extreme gravity of the black hole pulls the star into thin streams of matter,” explains author Thomas Weavers, an ESO fellow in Santiago. Chile, which was at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, UK, when it undertook the operation. During this spaghettiation process some thin strands of stellar material fall into the black hole, releasing a bright flame of energy, which astronomers can detect.

This animation shows the star experiencing spaghetti as it is pulled by a supermassive black hole during a ‘tidal disturbance event’. In a new study conducted using ESO’s very large telescope and ESO’s new technology Te G Telescope, a team of astronomers discovered that when a black hole eats a star, it can bring out a powerful explosion of material. Credit: ESO / M. Cornmeaser

Despite being powerful and bright, astronomers have yet to detect this explosion of light, which is often obscured by curtains of dust and debris. Only now are astronomers able to shed light on the origin of this veil.

Samantha Oates at the University of Birmingham explains, “We have seen that when a black hole eats up a star, it can make our vision a powerful explosion of material externally. This is because the energy emitted like a black hole eats up the content of the stars.

This discovery was possible because the tidal disturbance phenomenon studied by the team, the AT 2019 quiz, was found shortly after the star erupted. Says Kate Alexander, “Since we caught it early, we actually saw a curtain of dust and debris stretched as a powerful flow of material was launched through the black hole with a velocity of up to 10,000 km / cm.” NASA At Einstein Fellows Northwestern University U.S. In “This unique ‘peek behind the scenes’ will provide the first opportunity to direct the origins of obscure content and follow in real time how it involves black holes.”

Over a period of 201 months, the team conducted observations of the AT 2019 quiz located in a spiral galaxy in the constellation Aridenus, as the flames increased in luminosity and then faded. “Some celestial surveys detected emissions from the new tidal disturbance event very quickly after the star erupted,” says Weavers. “We immediately pointed to ground-based and space telescopes in that direction to see how light was generated.”

This video sequence zooms in on the Galaxy where the AT 2019 quiz is becoming a tidal disruption event. This phenomenon, the explosion of light from a star shattered by a supermassive black hole, has been studied by ESO telescopes. Credit: ESO / Digitized Sky Survey 2 / N. Risinger (SkySurvey.org.)

Several observations of the event were taken over the next month, with features including ESO’s VLT in Chile and ESO’s NTT on the ESO shooter and EFOSC2, powerful devices. Prompt and comprehensive observations of ultraviolet, optical, X-ray and radio light came out, for the first time, a direct connection between the material emanating from the star and the luminous flame picked up by the black hole. “Observations showed that the star had about the same mass as our own sun, and that it lost about half the mass of the monster black hole, which is more than a million times larger,” says Nicole, who is also a visiting researcher. Is also a visiting researcher. At the University of Edinburgh.

Research helps us better understand how matter behaves in supermassive black holes and the surrounding extreme gravitational environment. The team says the AT 2019 quiz could also serve as a ‘rosette stone’ to interpret future observations of tidal breakdown events. ESO’s Extreme Large Telescope (ELT), which is planned to be operational this decade, will allow researchers to detect increasingly obscure and rapidly evolving tidal phenomena to solve more mysteries of black hole physics.

Reference: “A near-outflow, near-rapid tidal breakdown event powers AT2019qiz’s 201Ptic energy” 12 October October 2020, Monthly instructions of the Royal Astronomical Society.
DOI: 10.1093 / MNRS / STA 2824

The team m. Nicole (Birmingham Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, UK). [Birmingham] And Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, UK [IfA]), T. Weavers (Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK), SR Oates (Birmingham), KD Alexander (Department of Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics and the Department of Physics and Astronomy, USA [Northwestern]), G. Lelaudas (DTU Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark) [DTU]), F. Honori (Estituto di Astrophysica e Planet olog Logia Spaziali (IANF), Roma, Italy), a. Jackstrand (Max-Planck-Institute of Astrophysics, Garthing, Germany and the Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, Sweden) [Stockholm]), S. Gomez (Astrophysics Center | Harvard and Smithsonian, Cambridge, USA [CfA]), S. Campana (IAANF – Osvatoreto Astronomico di Brera, Italy), i. Archive (School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tel Aviv, Israel and CIFAR Azeri Global Scholars Program, CIFAR, Toronto, Canada), p. Charlampoplos (DTU), m. Gromadzki (Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw, Poland) [Warsaw]), N. Ihanec (Warso), P.G. Jonker (Department of Astrophysics / IMAPP, University of Rudbeau, Netherlands [Radboud] And SRON, Netherlands Netherlands for Space Research, Netherlands [SRON]), a. Lawrence (IFA), i. Mendel (Monash Center for Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, Australia Australia and ARC Center Excel for Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery – Oz Zagra, Australia Australia and Birmingham), s. Schulz (Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Wizmann Institute, Israel) [Weizmann]) P. Short (IFA), j. Burke (Las Cambres Observatory, Goletta, USA [LCO] And Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA [UCSB]), C. M. C. Kulli (LCO and UCSB) D Hiramatsu (LCO and UCSB), D.A. Howell (LCO and UCSB), c. Pellegrino (LCO and UCSB), h. Abbott (The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian Australian National University, .Australia [ANU]), JP Anderson (European Southern Observatory, Santiago, Chile), e. Berger (CFA), P.K. Blancard (Northwestern), g. Canizaro (Redwood and SRON), T.W. Chen (Stockholm), m. Danniefeld (Institute Strophysics Paris (IAP), and Sorbonne University, Paris), l. Galbane (Department de Física Terica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Grenada, Spain), s. Gonzalez-Gaitan (Centra) -Centro de str Stroff í sica e Gravitao and Departmento de Fica Sica, Instituto Superior Technico, Universidad de Lisboa, Portugal), g. Hossenzadeh (CFA), c. INSERA (School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, UK), i. Irani (Weizmann), p. Quinn (Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, UK), t. Mલરller-Bravo (School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, UK), j. Pinada (Department de Senecius Ficicas, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile), NP Ross (IFA), R. Roy (International University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Ganeshkhind, India), S.J. Smart (Astrophysics Research Center, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen’s University Belfast, UK) [QUB]), KW Smith (QB), b. Tucker (ANU), 3. Vyrzhikovsky (Wawrso), DR Young (QUB).