What can stars exploding near black boles teach astronomers about the formation and expansion of both celestial objects? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as a team of researchers recently discovered a new type of star explosion which they dubbed “extreme nuclear transients” (ENTs). This comes after the team identified stars that are triple our Sun’s mass getting shredded after traveling too close to a black hole, resulting in never-before-seen brightness levels. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of both types of celestial objects, and the resulting cataclysm when they interact with each other.
For the study, the researchers used a global system called Gaia Alerts, which provides astronomers with information about unique celestial events. In this case, the researchers identified a celestial event that exhibited an amount of energy so large that the team has designated this as a new type of event known as an extreme nuclear transient (ENT) lasting more than 150 days with approximately double the energy as previously identified events, even supernovae. The researchers state that the cause of ENTs is from stars that are three times as massive as our Sun passing too close to a supermassive black hole.
"We’ve observed stars getting ripped apart as tidal disruption events for over a decade, but these ENTs are different beasts, reaching brightnesses nearly ten times more than what we typically see," said Jason Hinkle, who is a PhD Candidate at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and lead author of the study. “Not only are ENTs far brighter than normal tidal disruption events, but they remain luminous for years, far surpassing the energy output of even the brightest known supernova explosions.”
While the team notes the extreme rarity of ENTs, future high-powered telescopes like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and NASA’s Roman Space Telescope could provide astronomers with the necessary tools and resources to identify and study more ENTs.
What new discoveries about the interaction of stars and black holes will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Science Advances, EurekAlert!
Featured Image: Artist's illustration of a star slowly being consumed by a black hole. (Credit: University of Hawaiʻi)