AstroSat Capture Eruptions from Black Hole’s Wreckage
- 11 Oct 2024
On 10th October 2024, AstroSat and NASA’s space observatories detected dramatic X-ray eruptions from stellar debris surrounding a massive black hole, offering valuable insights into cosmic events, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) reported.
Key Points
- Stellar Wreckage Collision: A black hole, after tearing apart a star in 2019, is now using the shredded remains to impact another star or smaller black hole, as observed by NASA’s and ISRO’s space observatories, including Chandra and AstroSat.
- Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs) and Quasi-Periodic Eruptions (QPEs): The study provides evidence connecting tidal disruption events, where stars are torn apart by black holes, to quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs), solving two astronomical mysteries.
- Repeated X-Ray Bursts: Astronomers recorded X-ray bursts occurring roughly every 48 hours as a star orbits and repeatedly crashes through a debris disk surrounding the black hole, captured by NASA’s Chandra and NICER, and ISRO’s AstroSat.
- Significance: AstroSat’s Soft X-ray Telescope and Ultra-Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) detected the source AT2019qiz, solidifying India’s role in this groundbreaking discovery.
- Insights into Galactic Phenomena: The event, known as AT2019qiz, was first identified in 2019. Subsequent observations by NASA’s Hubble and Swift, along with AstroSat, have revealed the size of the disk and offered clues about the dynamics of stars in close proximity to black holes.
