A black hole destroys one star and chases after another, NASA missions have found

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Other telescopes have identified A Supermassive black hole That tore one apart star This stellar debris is now used to hit another star or a smaller black hole, as shown on our website Latest press release. This research helps connect two cosmic mysteries and provides information about the environment surrounding some of the largest types of black holes.

this Artist’s illustration It shows a disk of material (red, orange and yellow) created after a supermassive black hole (pictured right) tore a star through a condenser Tidal forces. Over the course of a few years, this disk expanded outward until it intersected with another object — either a star or a small black hole — also orbiting the giant black hole. Every time this object collides with the disk, it sends out a burst of… X-rays Detected by Chandra. The inset shows data for Chandra (purple) and optical Source image from Pan-STARRS (red, green, blue).

In 2019, an optical telescope in California observed a burst of light that astronomers later classified as a “tidal disturbance event,” or TDE. These are cases where black holes tear apart stars if they get too close through strong tidal forces. Astronomers have named the TDE AT2019qiz.

At the same time, scientists were also tracking examples of another type of cosmic phenomenon that is sometimes observed across the universe. These were short, regular bursts of X-rays that were close to supermassive black holes. Astronomers call these events “quasi-periodic explosions” or QPEs.

This latest study provides scientists with evidence that TDEs and QPEs are likely connected. Researchers believe that QPEs arise when an object collides with the disc remaining after a TDE. While there may be other explanations, the study authors suggest that this is the source of at least some QPEs.

In 2023, astronomers will use both Chandra and Hubble to study the debris left behind after the tidal disturbance ended simultaneously. The Chandra data were obtained during three different observations, each about 4 to 5 hours apart. A total exposure of approximately 14 hours Chandra time revealed only a weak signal in the first and last segment, but a very strong signal in the middle observation.

From there, researchers used NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) to repeatedly look at AT2019qiz for recurring X-ray bursts. NICER data showed that AT2019qiz erupts approximately every 48 hours. Observations by NASA’s Neil Girls Swift Observatory and India’s Astrosat telescope have reinforced this finding.

the Ultraviolet Data from Hubble, obtained at the same time as the Chandra observations, allowed scientists to determine the size of the disk surrounding the supermassive black hole. They found that the disk became large enough that if any object orbited the black hole and took about a week or less to complete its orbit, it would collide with the disk and cause explosions.

This result has implications for the search for more quasi-periodic eruptions associated with tidal disturbances. Finding more of these objects would allow astronomers to measure the spread of objects and the distances between them in close orbits around supermassive black holes. Some of these may be excellent goals for the planned future Gravitational wave Observatories.

The paper describing these findings appears in the October 9, 2024 issue of Nature. The first author of the paper is Matt Nicol (Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland) and the full list of authors can be found on the paper, which is available online at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.02181

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:

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This issue features an artistic rendering demonstrating the destructive power of a supermassive black hole. The digital image shows a disk of stellar material surrounding one of these black holes. At its outer edge, a neighboring star collides with the disk and flies through it.

The black hole is located halfway down the right edge of the vertical image. It looks like a black semicircle with a domed shade of pale blue light. The lower half of the circular black hole is hidden behind a disk of stellar matter. In this illustration, the disk is displayed on edge. It looks like a ribbon of swirling yellow, orange and red gas, cutting diagonally from the middle right toward the lower left.

Near our lower left, the outer edge of the stellar debris disk overlaps a bright blue sphere surrounded by luminous white swirls. This ball represents a nearby star colliding with the disk. A stellar disk is the debris of a destroyed star. A blue and white electric wave shows the hottest gas in the disk.

When a nearby star collides with the disk, it leaves behind a trail of gas depicted as streaks of fine haze. Bursts of X-rays are fired and are detected by Chandra.

In the upper left corner of the illustration there is an inset box showing a close-up image of the source in X-ray and optical light. X-ray light appears purple, optical light appears white and beige.

Megan Watsky
Chandra X-ray Centre
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
617-496-7998
[email protected]

Lynn Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
[email protected]