Winston
Lorenzo von Matterhorn
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5 Unsolved Space Mysteries
New Kind of Space Explosion Reveals the Birth of a Black Hole
A supernova-like explosion dubbed the Camel appears to be the result of a newborn black hole eating a star from the inside out.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-camel-supernova-reveals-the-birth-of-a-black-hole-20210310
In 2018, astronomers were shocked to find a bizarre explosion in a galaxy 200 million light-years away. It wasn’t like any normal supernova seen before — it was both briefer and brighter. The event was given an official designation, AT2018cow, but soon went by a more jovial nickname: the Cow.
The short-lived event — known as a transient — defied explanation. Some thought it might be a star being torn apart by a nearby black hole, but others favored a “failed supernova” scenario, where a black hole quite literally eats a star from the inside out. To find out for sure, they needed to find more Cow-like events.
More than two years later, they got one.
Beginning on October 12, 2020, telescopes watched as something in a galaxy 3 billion light-years away became incredibly bright, then disappeared from view. It behaved almost identically to the Cow, astronomers reported in a paper posted to the online preprint site arxiv.org last week, leading them to conclude that it must be the same type of episode. In keeping with tradition, it was given its own animal-inspired name: the Camel.
Like its predecessor, the Camel became very bright in a short time, reaching its peak in two or three days. It grew about 100 times brighter than any normal type of supernova. Then it rapidly dimmed in a process that lasted just days, rather than weeks. “It fades very fast, and while it’s fading it stays hot,” Perley said.
The leading idea at the moment is the failed-supernova hypothesis. The process begins when a massive star around 20 times the mass of our sun reaches the end of its life and exhausts its fuel. Its core then collapses, beginning what would normally be a regular supernova, where infalling material rebounds back out, leaving behind a dense object called a neutron star.
But in cases like the Camel and the Cow, “something unusual happens in the process to core collapse,” said Perley. “What we claim is that instead of collapsing to a neutron star, it collapsed straight into a black hole, and most of the star fell into the black hole.”
As the black hole eats the star’s outer layers, it begins to spin rapidly, producing powerful jets that fire out from the poles. We’re seeing the explosion of light caused by the jets as they burst through the outer layers.
New Kind of Space Explosion Reveals the Birth of a Black Hole
A supernova-like explosion dubbed the Camel appears to be the result of a newborn black hole eating a star from the inside out.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-camel-supernova-reveals-the-birth-of-a-black-hole-20210310
In 2018, astronomers were shocked to find a bizarre explosion in a galaxy 200 million light-years away. It wasn’t like any normal supernova seen before — it was both briefer and brighter. The event was given an official designation, AT2018cow, but soon went by a more jovial nickname: the Cow.
The short-lived event — known as a transient — defied explanation. Some thought it might be a star being torn apart by a nearby black hole, but others favored a “failed supernova” scenario, where a black hole quite literally eats a star from the inside out. To find out for sure, they needed to find more Cow-like events.
More than two years later, they got one.
Beginning on October 12, 2020, telescopes watched as something in a galaxy 3 billion light-years away became incredibly bright, then disappeared from view. It behaved almost identically to the Cow, astronomers reported in a paper posted to the online preprint site arxiv.org last week, leading them to conclude that it must be the same type of episode. In keeping with tradition, it was given its own animal-inspired name: the Camel.
Like its predecessor, the Camel became very bright in a short time, reaching its peak in two or three days. It grew about 100 times brighter than any normal type of supernova. Then it rapidly dimmed in a process that lasted just days, rather than weeks. “It fades very fast, and while it’s fading it stays hot,” Perley said.
The leading idea at the moment is the failed-supernova hypothesis. The process begins when a massive star around 20 times the mass of our sun reaches the end of its life and exhausts its fuel. Its core then collapses, beginning what would normally be a regular supernova, where infalling material rebounds back out, leaving behind a dense object called a neutron star.
But in cases like the Camel and the Cow, “something unusual happens in the process to core collapse,” said Perley. “What we claim is that instead of collapsing to a neutron star, it collapsed straight into a black hole, and most of the star fell into the black hole.”
As the black hole eats the star’s outer layers, it begins to spin rapidly, producing powerful jets that fire out from the poles. We’re seeing the explosion of light caused by the jets as they burst through the outer layers.
