On the eve of Halloween, the universe is abuzz with the antics of two mysterious black holes. One has been dubbed a "serial killer," poised to consume its second star within a mere five years, while the other represents a groundbreaking discovery in the realm of astrophysics—a black-hole triple system, marking the first-ever recorded instance where a black hole coexists with two others in a three-body gravitational dance.
These enigmatic black holes are a testament to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which established their existence over a century ago. Astronomers estimate that millions populate our own Milky Way galaxy alone, remnants of stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel and collapsed under their gravity. Additionally, nearly every galaxy is believed to contain a supermassive black hole at its core, significantly more massive than our Sun.
The first black hole, responsible for extensive destruction, caught the attention of researchers about five years ago when they detected a brilliant flare from a distant galaxy located 215 million light-years away. This flare was linked to a "tidal disruption event" named AT1910qix, occurring as a star strayed too close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.
Over a span of five months, this star succumbed to gravitational forces, its structure torn asunder and reshaped into a vast ring encircling the black hole. While half the debris spiraled into the black hole, the other half dispersed into an expanding disc. Now, remnants from this disc have migrated far enough out to disrupt the orbit of a neighboring star.
Every 48 hours, this adjacent star collides with the residual disc, generating bursts of dramatic X-ray radiation. An international consortium of astronomers, spearheaded by Matt Nicholl from Queen’s University, Belfast, has been tracking these phenomena using multiple space telescopes, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer. Their findings have been recently published in the journal Nature, shedding light on these extraordinary cosmic events.
These enigmatic black holes are a testament to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which established their existence over a century ago. Astronomers estimate that millions populate our own Milky Way galaxy alone, remnants of stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel and collapsed under their gravity. Additionally, nearly every galaxy is believed to contain a supermassive black hole at its core, significantly more massive than our Sun.
The first black hole, responsible for extensive destruction, caught the attention of researchers about five years ago when they detected a brilliant flare from a distant galaxy located 215 million light-years away. This flare was linked to a "tidal disruption event" named AT1910qix, occurring as a star strayed too close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.
Over a span of five months, this star succumbed to gravitational forces, its structure torn asunder and reshaped into a vast ring encircling the black hole. While half the debris spiraled into the black hole, the other half dispersed into an expanding disc. Now, remnants from this disc have migrated far enough out to disrupt the orbit of a neighboring star.
Every 48 hours, this adjacent star collides with the residual disc, generating bursts of dramatic X-ray radiation. An international consortium of astronomers, spearheaded by Matt Nicholl from Queen’s University, Belfast, has been tracking these phenomena using multiple space telescopes, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer. Their findings have been recently published in the journal Nature, shedding light on these extraordinary cosmic events.
