Fatal attraction burns bright between star and black hole
Nature Astronomy
2016년12월13일
A massive, spinning black hole has been caught in the act of tearing apart a star that wandered too close, according to a paper published online in Nature Astronomy this week. This scenario is the latest interpretation behind a bright flare that was detected by an automated telescope in Chile last year.
Astronomers initially classified this event (named ASASSN-15lh) as a supernova explosion - indeed, the most luminous ever observed. However, continued observations led Giorgos Leloudas and colleagues to propose an alternative explanation for the event: a star disintegrating under the gravitational influence of a black hole. Many of these so-called tidal disruption events have been observed previously, but the authors note that this instance would rank as the brightest.
The team undertook a 10-month observing campaign and combined their observations with additional data gathered from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission and ground-based telescopes. Based on this data, they argue that the flare originated from the very centre of a galaxy - where one would expect a black hole to reside. They also note that the host galaxy’s high mass and lack of current star-forming activity is not consistent with a supernova explanation.
doi: 10.1038/s41550-016-0002
리서치 하이라이트
-
8월4일
Environment: Extreme flooding and drought make risk management difficultNature
-
8월3일
Environment: Salt may inhibit lightning in sea stormsNature Communications
-
7월29일
Environment: Costs of amphibian and reptile invasions exceeded US$ 17 billion between 1986 and 2020Scientific Reports
-
7월27일
Environment: Plastic pollution encourages bacterial growth in lakesNature Communications
-
7월27일
Ecology: Using fallow land to grow vanilla increases biodiversityNature Communications
-
7월26일
Palaeontology: Attenborough fossil provides insights into jellyfish familyNature Ecology & Evolution