Astronomers saw a giant black hole shred one star and then use it to hit another!

In 2019, an explosion of light caught the attention of astronomersastronomers. A tidal rupture event (TDE for “tidaltidal disruption event »)) they quickly determined. Understand, the sign that a star got a little too close to a black hole and was literally torn apart by its powerful tidal forces. The researchers named it AT2019qiz.

Where do these X-ray bursts come from after a black hole tears a star apart?

In 2023, NASA astronomers began observing it again. On the databasedatabase referred in particular by the observatory to x-raysx-rays ChandraChandra and the NeutronNeutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (Nicer), they reveal today, in the magazine Naturethat AT2019qiz emits startlesstartles x-rays every 48 hours. A behavior that researchers have already observed inUniverseUniverse and they call “quasi-periodic eruptions”.

But what astronomers now understand is that this type ofbroadcastsbroadcasts of X-rays is linked to tidal rupture events. On images in the field of ultravioletultraviolet sent back by the Hubble space telescope, they were in fact able to observe the size of the disk formed by the jagged star and now rotating around the supermassive black holesupermassive black hole at the origin of everything. To discover that this disk has become large enough that, if an object in it orbitorbit around the black hole takes a week or less to go around, it collides with the disk. And that would cause the X-ray bursts.

Are tidal rupture events and quasi-periodic X-ray flares related?

According to NASA astronomers, other phenomena can explain the quasi-periodic eruptions. But their work shows that at least some are linked to TDEs. Finding a little more would allow researchers to measure the prevalenceprevalence and the distances of objects in close orbit around the supermassive black holessupermassive black holes. Some of these could make excellent targets for future gravitational wave observatories.