WhatsNew2Day – Latest News And Breaking Headlines
Astronomers made this discovery after spending years observing black holes
Stars involved in tidal disturbance events are destroyed within hours
<!–
<!–
<!– <!–
<!–
<!–
<!–
Black holes are among the most talked about objects in the universe, but scientists still have a lot to learn to understand their mysterious behavior.
We already know that notoriously messy eaters swallow everything in their path.
But what astronomers didn’t realize was that the cosmic monsters are then “burping up” an eclectic mix of stars, gas, planets and dust that they had destroyed years earlier.
This surprise only emerged because experts decided to monitor black holes for several years after they were involved in tidal disturbance events (TDEs).
Traditionally, objects were only studied a few months after a TDE, which occurs when stars venture too close to a black hole and are ripped apart in a process called spaghettification.
Mystery: Scientists know that black holes are notoriously messy eaters that gobble up everything in their path. But what they didn’t realize was that the cosmic monsters are ‘burping up’ a mixture of stars, gas, planets and dust they had destroyed years earlier (stock image)
Although black holes cannot be observed directly, scientists can observe a TDE because these events emit light, radio waves, and other waves for a few weeks or months when they occur.
When they occur, some of the remaining gas and dust from a destroyed star is thrown away from the black hole.
The remnant then forms a thin Frisbee-like structure around it, called an accretion disk, which gradually feeds this stellar material into the black hole.
But what scientists at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have discovered is that some of this material can then reappear between two and six years after a TDE.
They found that nearly half of the 24 black holes they observed burped, but they didn’t know why.
“If you look years down the line, a very, very large fraction of those black holes that don’t have radio emission in those early days will suddenly light up in radio waves,” said lead author Yvette Cendes. Live Science.
“I call it a ‘burp’ because we have a kind of lag where this material doesn’t come out of the accretion disk until much later than people anticipated.”
Although black holes cannot be observed directly, scientists can observe a TDE because these events emit light, radios and other waves for a few weeks or months as they occur.
The question is: where is it stored before being “burped”?
Scientists know for sure that it doesn’t come from inside a black hole, because objects have an event horizon where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape.
Cendes added: “We don’t really understand if the material seen in the radio waves is from the accretion disk or is stored somewhere closer to the black hole.
“But black holes are definitely clutter eaters.”
The researchers plan to continue monitoring the black holes they have observed, especially as some of them continue to get brighter after TDE.
They are also calling for improved computer modeling to better represent how black holes can “burp” years later, which experts hope will deepen understanding of this strange behavior.
The new research has been published in the preprint database arXiv but not yet peer reviewed.
Black holes keep ‘burping up’ stars they destroyed years earlier – and astronomers have no idea why