Astronomers Observe Black Hole Shredding Massive Star in Unprecedented Event
A black hole has been observed tearing apart a massive star, releasing energy surpassing that of known supernovae.
Astronomers have observed a black hole consuming a massive star, an event that released energy exceeding 400 billion times that of the Sun, surpassing the most powerful known supernovae.
The event, designated AT2024wpp and nicknamed the Whippet, was identified by Anna Ho, assistant professor of astronomy at Cornell University, using the Zwicky Transient Facility at Palomar Observatory in California.
Within a day, observations from the Liverpool Telescope in the Canary Islands and NASA's Swift satellite confirmed the object's properties as a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT), characterized by its blue color and X-ray emissions.
Further analysis revealed that the black hole had been siphoning material from a massive companion star over time, forming a surrounding shell of gas. When the star ventured too close, it was torn apart by tidal forces, with the resulting material forming an accretion disk around the black hole. This interaction produced intense bursts of X-ray, ultraviolet, and blue optical light, along with high-speed radio jets traveling at approximately 40% the speed of light.
The companion star was likely more than ten times the mass of the Sun and may have been a Wolf-Rayet star, an evolved, extremely hot star that has lost much of its hydrogen.
This observation provides new insights into the behavior of black holes and their interactions with massive stars, offering a unique opportunity to study the physics of such extreme cosmic events.