Sinister! Black holes ravaging the same star over and over again captured by the Newton Telescope

ESA’s XMM-Newton Space Telescope has provided two different groups of astronomers an insight into the repeated flares of light from dormant black holes that are striking again and again. repeat the same star. The discovery is both surprising and shocking because outbursts from these black holes occur only when a black hole ravages a star. The attacks are as barbaric as possible as these black holes eat the parts of the star being hit.

Hidden supermassive black hole

Astronomers can “see” a hidden supermassive black hole when a star turns towards it during a close approach. The star is torn apart by strong tidal forces, forming a disk of stellar debris that the black hole is eating. X-ray, ultraviolet, optical and radio-energy light can be detected during this process known as tidal disruption events. Black holes can never be seen. Its presence is inferred from the behavior of its surroundings – in this case, stars being eaten.

Tidal disruption events occur in a luminescent region known as the Flare, usually lasting several months and during this period. black hole eat up the star. However, two new flames with strange behavior were observed by XMM-Newton. These flares continued to shine under X-rays and UV rays after the initial outburst, suggesting that the stars were not completely destroyed during their first encounter with the black holes.

The study, led by astronomers Thomas Wevers from the European Southern Observatory and Zhu Liu from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Germany, revealed that part of the stars may have survived after their first attack from black holes.

Astronomers have detected repeated flashes of light from two separate galaxies containing supermassive black holes. These galaxies lie beyond the Milky Way’s periphery at a distance of nearly 900 million light-years and 1 billion light-years.

One of the re-ignition events, called eRASSt J045650.3−203750, was detected by X-rays. telescope eROSITA aboard the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma mission ship. XMM-Newton observations in 2021 and 2022 by a team led by Zhu found that the initial outbreak was followed by repeated outbreaks about every 223 days.

“The results from our first XMM-Newton observations were surprising,” explains Zhu. The black hole shows unusually dim X-ray light, compared to when it was detected by the eROSITA telescope two weeks earlier. Follow-up observations with XMM-Newton and other instruments confirmed our speculation that this behavior was caused by a partial tidal disruption event.”