2024-02-06 08:45:10
It is possible to capture black holes devouring stars all over the sky, if you know how to look for them. This has become clear after recently concluded research that aimed to search for signs of stars torn apart by black holes.
The study is the work of a team led by Megan Masterson, from the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, dependent on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Cambridge, United States.
Masterson and his colleagues have discovered 18 cases of stars torn apart by the gravitational force of black holes. When a star passes too close to a black hole, it can violently pull on it, tearing it into shreds in the process. This and the fall of part of the stellar matter towards the black hole cause quite characteristic radiation emissions.
Radiation signatures of this kind have already been detected before, essentially in the visible light and X-ray bands. Until before the new study, the total number of detected cases of stars torn apart by black holes was approximately one dozen. Masterson and his colleagues have more than doubled the number of cases detected.
The authors of the new study discovered these “hidden” cases by observing in an unconventional band: the infrared. In addition to emitting bursts of visible light and The dust in these galaxies typically absorbs and obscures visible light and X-rays, as well as any signs of such shattering in these bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, in the process, the dust also heats up, producing detectable infrared radiation. The team discovered that infrared emissions can serve as a telltale sign of these pieces.
In the new research, 18 new stars being torn apart by black holes have been discovered. (Photos: research team, retouched by MIT News. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
The 18 new breakups occurred in different types of galaxies, scattered throughout the sky.
The study is titled “A New Population of Mid-Infrared-Selected Tidal Disruption Events: Implications for Tidal Disruption Event Rates and Host Galaxy Properties.” And it has been published in the academic journal The Astrophysical Journal. (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
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