A supermassive black hole has violently consumed a massive star, resulting in a cosmic explosion that shone as brightly as 10 trillion suns, according to a recent study.
This event, referred to as a black hole flare, is believed to be the largest and most remote ever detected.
“This is genuinely a one-in-a-million occurrence,” stated Matthew Graham, a research professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology and the lead author of the study published Tuesday in Nature Astronomy.
Graham indicated that based on the explosion’s intensity and duration, a black hole flare is likely the explanation, but further studies will be necessary to validate this conclusion.
While it is common for black holes to devour nearby stars, gas, dust, and other materials, such significant flare events are exceptionally rare, according to Graham.
“This enormous flare is far more energetic than anything we’ve encountered previously,” he remarked, noting that the explosion’s peak luminosity was 30 times that of any black hole flare documented so far.
Its extreme intensity is partly due to the massive size of the celestial objects involved. The star that came too close to the black hole is estimated to possess at least 30 times the mass of the Sun, while the supermassive black hole and its surrounding matter disk are estimated to be 500 million times more massive than the Sun.
Graham mentioned that these powerful explosions have persisted for more than seven years and are likely still ongoing.
The flare was initially detected in 2018 during a comprehensive sky survey using three ground-based telescopes. At the time, it was identified as a “particularly bright object,” but follow-up observations months later yielded little valuable data.
Consequently, black hole flares were mostly overlooked until 2023, when Graham and his team opted to revisit some intriguing findings from their earlier research. Astronomers have since managed to roughly ascertain the distance to this exceptionally bright object, and the results were astonishing.
“Suddenly, I thought, ‘Wow, this is actually quite far away,'” Graham explained. “And if it’s this far away and this bright, how much energy is it emitting? This is both unusual and intriguing.”
While the exact circumstances of the star’s demise remain unclear, Graham hypothesized that a cosmic collision might have nudged the star from its typical orbit around the black hole, leading to a close encounter.
This finding enhances our understanding of black hole behavior and evolution.
“Our perspective on supermassive black holes and their environments has dramatically transformed over the past five to ten years,” Graham stated. “We once pictured most galaxies in the universe with a supermassive black hole at the center, idly rumbling away. We now recognize it as a much more dynamic setting, and we are just beginning to explore its complexities.”
He noted that while the flares are gradually diminishing over time, they will remain detectable with ground-based telescopes for several more years.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
