Tidal Disruption Events: When Suns Moving at Light Speed Around a Black Hole Collide
Imagine stars moving at light speed and colliding around a black hole. Astronomers call these tidal disruption events.
The Debrief 8:09 pm on April 10, 2024
Avi Loeb, a professor and researcher, shares a surprising discovery made by his team about transient events in the vicinity of supermassive black holes. They found a new class of transients with a dimming and rebrightening pattern that distinguishes them from tidal disruption flares. This result came as a surprise when they initially calculated the collision distance based on outflow speed, but it later made sense given the size of these black holes. The Rubin Observatory is expected to survey the southern sky every four days starting next year, providing an opportunity to search for these events.
- A new class of transients in galactic nuclei with a dimming and rebrightening pattern identified
- Distinguishes them from tidal disruption flares by the absence of whole star ingestion in supermassive black holes (>100 million suns)
- The Rubin Observatory to survey the southern sky, potentially detecting these events starting next year
- Surprising result came from an unexpected collision distance calculation based on outflow speed
- Further research and analysis ongoing
https://thedebrief.org/tidal-disruption-events-when-suns-moving-at-light-speed-around-a-black-hole-collide/