In 2009 , a very bright flash of visible radiation was hitch by the ROTSE IIIb scope , sparking discombobulation as to its origin . Now , a newspaper inThe Astrophysical Journalproposes that the case was the death throes of a star being swallowed by a black yap . However , the consumption is proving unco unmanageable for the smuggled hole .
When the ROTSE3 J120847.9 + 430121 upshot was celebrate on January 21 , 2009 , as part of the ROTSE Supernova Verification Project ( RSVP ) , four hypothesis were extend about what could have caused such a abbreviated , bright event . It could be the effect oftwo neutron stars combine , agamma - ray burstwhose main radiation was point away from us , asuperluminous supernova , or a star getting eaten by the supermassive black hole at the center of its galaxy .
The event was certainly hopeful — its red shift placed it 2.9 billion light - twelvemonth out , at which aloofness its find brightness would render to anabsolute magnitudeof -22.5 , six times more luminous than the whole Milky Way and a match for the brightest known supernova .
It has taken six years and a few day , but now an international team of astronomer believe they have remove the mystery , conclude that the event — dub " Dougie " aftera South Park character who serve as a sidekick to Professor Chaos — falls into the last category .
Extensive report of Dougie ’s quickly fading afterglow , combined with modeling of each of the physical summons , suggested that the consumption of a star was the best fit . Witnessing a black mess in the process of destroying a maven is not common , but such events have been visualize several times . Part of the confusion about Dougie ’s identity operator , however , is that this did n’t look like any of those previous effect .
" We got the estimation that it might be a ' tidal kerfuffle ' event,“said study co - author J. Craig Wheelerof the University of Texas in Austin . " A star wanders near a black hole , the star ’s side nearer the inglorious hole is pull " on knockout than the superstar ’s far side , Wheeler said . " These peculiarly magnanimous tide can be strong enough that you pull the headliner out into a noodle " shape .
As a result , Wheeler pronounce , the sensation “ does n’t come now into the black hole . It might form a disk first . But the black hole is designate to swallow most of that material . ”
However , like a crocodile fighting back at being deplete by a snake , the star is n’t going quietly . Even when torn apart , it is shine intensely and this radiation is pushing back against the hole .
The author conclude that this is not because the star is particularly big — being only an estimated 80 % of the sight of the Lord’s Day — but because the pitch-dark hole has the deal of about a million suns , which is “ rather modest ” in Wheeler ’s dustup , andless than a quarterthat at the center of our own extragalactic nebula .
