Astronomers have detected a supermassive black hole that has torn apart a nearby passing star. This phenomenon is not only observed in its closest state to Earth, but also has an unexpected position and light, and scientists can now explain why this phenomenon is less visible than expected.
Black holes can swallow anything that comes close to them. When stars fall into black holes, a phenomenon calledFatal disruption event(TDE) occurs. These events were previously thought to be relatively common, but the researchers’ new observation of the event WTP14adbjsh It is important for several reasons.
First and foremost, this distance event 137 million light years The closest TDE event to Earth has ever been. 137 million light-years may not seem that close, but the previous record was held by an event more than 200 million light-years away from Earth.
Stars form around this black hole
This TDE was observed from a different type of galaxy. Most lethal disruption events are observed in relatively quiet galaxies, but WTP13adbjsh was observed in a galaxy that is actively Production of new stars Is. Theories say it’s natural for these types of galaxies to regularly host TDEs because they provide more fodder for black holes, but so far there haven’t been many examples of such events seen in these galaxies.
Now this new TDE may provide an explanation for this issue. The death of these stars in black holes is usually accompanied by lights Optical and X-ray They appear bright, but WTP14adbjsh does not show up at these wavelengths. This event instead in the wave length infrared observed. Star-producing galaxies are usually environments dusty are, therefore optical light and X-rays do not pass through them; But infrared waves can pass through these dusts.
The scientists who discovered this TDE weren’t specifically looking for these events. They were scanning the sky with infrared light in another project when they spotted WTP14adbjsh. This discovery can now explain why these phenomena are so rare to discover in these types of galaxies.
The results of this research have been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
