Supermassive black holes are a huge (in every sense) mystery to scientists: where do these space gluttons get such a huge mass, no one knows yet. However, a team of astronomers from the UK seems to have stumbled upon a clue, and did it quite by accident.
Most galaxies in the universe have at least one property in common: supermassive black holes, which tend to be located in the center of a galaxy and devour anything that flies within their event horizon range. However, scientists still know very little about the origins of these "vacuum cleaners" and how they reach the state of supermassiveness.
James Mannelly and his colleagues at Sheffield University stumbled upon the solution to this puzzle by accident. In a study published recently in the journal Nature Astronomy, they demonstrated evidence that black holes can rip apart and swallow entire stars, more often than previously thought.
“The results, like most scientific discoveries, came out completely by accident. Initially, we just wanted to see what happens when galaxies collide,”says James. In 2015, while his team was observing 15 galaxies, scientists noticed that one of them has not changed at all since 2005. They found a powerful flash of light, the imprint of the so-called Tidal Disruption Events, or TDE. This phenomenon occurs when a star deviates too close to a black hole, and thus begins to suck stellar matter into itself. For a star, this means death, and for a black hole, a hearty meal.
TDE is not inherently surprising, but finding it in a selection of only 15 galaxies was very strange. "Until now, such events have been calculated by analyzing thousands, if not tens of thousands of galaxies," explains Manelli. So what is this, incredible luck? The astronomer claims that, according to his calculations, the randomly calculated probability of such a phenomenon is on the order of 1 in 100. Moreover, the factor of collision of galaxies played on their side, in which, according to the team, TDE is observed much more often. “It's like lung diseases: you examine a group of nonsmokers, and you will find the disease in one person. Examine the same number of smokers - and every fifth person will be sick. We just narrowed the search, correctly identifying the key circumstance,”says the scientist.
Of course, this hypothesis still needs clarification and numerous tests, however, if it is correct, then astronomers will have a chance to study in detail the rarest phenomenon using numerous examples and thus come closer to understanding how a black hole lives and interacts with a galaxy. Perhaps it is the stars, often devoured by black holes, that cause them to acquire a colossal mass.