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An artist’s illustration depicts a massive star being stretched by the gravitational pull of a nearby black hole, just before it goes supernova. This undated image, provided by Reuters, visually captures the intense interaction between the two celestial bodies.
Astronomers have observed a catastrophic event involving a star that seemingly chose the wrong partner in the cosmic dance. They have recorded what appears to be a new type of supernova—stellar explosions that traditionally mark the end of a star’s life— which happened when a large star attempted to swallow a black hole with which it had been engaged in a prolonged gravitational embrace.
The star, at least ten times the mass of our sun, shared a gravitational bond with a black hole whose mass was similar. This pairing existed within a binary system. Over time, as the distance between them decreased, the black hole’s enormous gravitational force began to distort the star—stretching it beyond a perfect sphere—and started siphoning material away before the star ultimately exploded.
“We discovered a massive star engaged in a fatal dance with a black hole,” said astrophysicist Alexander Gagliano from the US National Science Foundation’s Institute for AI and Fundamental Interactions at MIT. Gagliano is a co-author of the study published this week in the Astrophysical Journal.
“After losing mass over years in a spiraling death duel with the black hole, the star finally met its end by exploding. The energy released in a split second surpassed what the sun will emit over its entire lifetime,” Gagliano explained.
This explosion occurred approximately 700 million light-years from Earth. To clarify, a light-year is the distance that light travels in one year—about 5.9 trillion miles or 9.5 trillion kilometers.
“The black hole and the star had similar masses, so their gravitational pulls were comparable. However, the star was much larger and more diffuse, and as the black hole pulled material from it, the star was gradually consumed. Despite the star’s size, the black hole’s power prevailed,” Gagliano noted.
The exact process that caused this supernova remains uncertain. Researchers are unsure whether the star’s distortion instigated an instability leading to collapse, with the remaining stellar material rapidly being consumed by the black hole, or if the black hole tore the star apart entirely before the explosion.
“The star was significantly distorted and morphed by the black hole’s influence in complex ways,” said Ashley Villar, a Harvard astrophysicist and lead author of the study.
Initially, the binary system consisted of two massive stars orbiting each other. One of these stars ended its natural lifecycle in a supernova explosion, after which its core collapsed to form a black hole—a dense object with gravity so strong that even light cannot escape.
“This event shows us that some supernovae can be triggered by black hole companions, providing new insights into how massive stars die,” Villar explained.
Stars at least eight times the mass of the sun are likely to end their lives in a supernova, and those with at least 20 times the Sun’s mass are destined to leave behind a black hole after exploding.
An artificial intelligence system designed for real-time detection of unusual cosmic explosions identified the event early, enabling astronomers to conduct immediate follow-up observations. By the time the explosion concluded, multiple telescopes, both on the ground and in space, had already observed it.
“Our AI tool gave us the chance to initiate early, comprehensive observations, allowing us to see the full picture for the first time,” Gagliano said.
Observations conducted four years prior to the explosion revealed bright emissions, likely caused when the black hole consumed material shed from the star—particularly its outer hydrogen layer, which was apparently stripped away to reveal the helium layer underneath.
Following the explosion, astronomers observed increased emissions as the black hole accreted leftover stellar debris, growing more massive and energetic over time.
Binary systems with two or more celestial bodies are quite common, and some include black holes as companions. This event provides new understanding of how the presence of a black hole influences the death of massive stars, illustrating just how profoundly their fates are intertwined.
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