A supermassive black hole appears to have produced a record-breaking flare after devouring a star at least 30 times more massive than the Sun.
This event has not yet been confirmed as a tidal disruption event (TDE), which occurs when black hole devours a star (or similar object) that comes too close to the black hole's gravity. But if confirmed, this TDE, dubbed J2245+3743, would be the most powerful and distant energetic burst ever recorded from a supermassive black hole.
The findings are reported Nov. 4 in the journal. Nature Astronomywould easily overtake the previous record-breaking candidate. By nickname “Scary Barbie” (a character from the 2023 live-action Barbie film) in 2023, after being classified as ZTF20abrbeie, this earlier flare from another supermassive black hole is estimated to have devoured a star with only 3 to 10 times the mass of the Sun.
Very far and very bright
The recently published event originated from a huge feeding black hole, also known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN). The supermassive black hole is believed to be more than 500 million times more massive than the Sun. It is also quite distant, 10 billion light years away. (For comparison, the Universe is about 13.8 billion years old.)
While astronomers observed the black hole for several months, the flare shone 30 times brighter than other flares previously observed, with a brightness of about 10 trillion suns at its peak. Peak luminosity also varied by a factor of forty over the observation period.
“The energetics show that this object is very far away and very bright,” lead author Matthew GrahamThis was stated in a statement by a research professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). “This is unlike any AGN we have ever seen.”
Graham is also a postdoctoral fellow at the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), which first observed the event in 2018 from its site at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego. Since then, the flare has been periodically observed by several other telescopes in space and on Earth.
When the research paper was written, the outbreak was still ongoing, although fading. Graham said the flare is likely dimming because the star hasn't completely burned out yet, like “a fish only halfway through a whale's esophagus.”
The brightness of the flare is even more remarkable when compared to about 100 other TDEs recorded so far. Most flares are on the same brightness scale as normal black hole feeding activity, making them difficult to detect. Therefore, J2245+3743's brightness came as a surprise because the flare was easily visible above the black hole's normal activity.
While the suspected massive star destroyed in the TDE would be a rare find, others are likely to exist, the researchers say. The researchers plan to study the ZTF data for more similar events, and they say the recently completed Vera K. Rubin Observatory may spot a few more while scanning the sky.
