Yikes! What a way to go. One wonders if there were any planets around that star and if they may have contained life. We’ll never know.
Black hole eats star, producing bright gamma-ray flash
By Robert Sanders, Media Relations UC Berkeley | June 16, 2011
BERKELEY —
A bright flash of gamma rays observed March 28 by the Swift satellite may have been the death rattle of a star falling into a massive black hole and being ripped apart, according to a team of astronomers led by the University of California, Berkeley.
When the Swift Gamma Burst Mission spacecraft first detected the flash within the constellation Draco, astronomers thought it was a gamma-ray burst from a collapsing star and designated it GRB 110328A. On March 31, however, UC Berkeley’s Joshua Bloom sent out an email circular suggesting that it wasn’t a typical gamma-ray burst at all, but a high-energy jet produced as a star about the size of our sun was shredded by a black hole a million times more massive.
Careful analysis of the Swift data and subsequent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory confirmed Bloom’s initial insight. The details are published online today (Thursday, June 16) in Science Express, a rapid publication arm of the journal Science.
“This is truly different from any explosive event we have seen before,” Bloom said.
What made this gamma-ray flare, called Sw 1644+57, stand out from a typical burst were its long duration and the fact that it appeared to come from the center of a galaxy nearly 4 billion light years away. Since most, if not all, galaxies are thought to contain a massive black hole at the center, a long-duration burst could conceivably come from the relatively slow tidal disruption of an infalling star, the astronomers said.
“This burst produced a tremendous amount of energy over a fairly long period of time, and the event is still going on more than two and a half months later,” said Bloom, an associate professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley. “That’s because as the black hole rips the star apart, the mass swirls around like water going down a drain, and this swirling process releases a lot of energy.”
Bloom and his colleagues propose in their Science Express paper that some 10 percent of the infalling star’s mass is turned into energy and irradiated as X-rays from the swirling accretion disk or as X-rays and higher energy gamma rays from a relativistic jet that punches out along the rotation axis. Earth just happened to be in the eye of the gamma-ray beam.
Bloom draws an analogy with a quasar, which is a distant galaxy that emits bright, high-energy light because of the massive black hole at its center gobbling up stars and sending out a jet of X-rays along its rotation axis. Observed from an angle, these bright emissions are called active galactic nuclei, but when observed down the axis of the jet, they’re referred to as blazars.
“We argue that this must be jetted material and we’re looking down the barrel,” he said. “Jetting is a common phenomenon when you have accretion disks, and black holes actually prefer to make jets.”
Looking back at previous observations of this region of the cosmos, Bloom and his team could find no evidence of X-ray or gamma-ray emissions, leading them to conclude that this is a “one-off event,” Bloom said.
“Here, you have a black hole sitting quiescently, not gobbling up matter, and all of a sudden something sets it off,” Bloom said. “This could happen in our own galaxy, where a black hole sits at the center living in quiescence, and occasionally burbles or hiccups as it swallows a little bit of gas. From a distance, it would appear dormant, until a star randomly wanders too close and is shredded.”
Probable tidal disruptions of a star by a massive black hole have previously been seen at X-ray, ultraviolet and optical wavelengths, but never before at gamma-ray energies. Such random events, especially looking down the barrel of a jet, are incredibly rare, “probably once in 100 million years in any given galaxy,” said Bloom. “I would be surprised if we saw another one of these anywhere in the sky in the next decade.”
The astronomers suspect that the gamma-ray emissions began March 24 or 25 in the uncatalogued galaxy at a redshift of 0.3534, putting it at a distance of about 3.8 billion light years. Bloom and his colleagues estimate that the emissions will fade over the next year.
“We think this event was detected around the time it was as bright as it will ever be, and if it’s really a star being ripped apart by a massive black hole, we predict that it will never happen again in this galaxy,” he said.
Bloom’s colleagues include UC Berkeley theoretical physicist Elliot Quataert, who models the production of jets from accretion disks, and UC Berkeley astronomers S. Bradley Cenko, Daniel A. Perley, Nathaniel R. Butler, Linda E. Strubbe, Antonino Cucchiara, Geoffrey C. Bower and Adam N. Morgan; Dimitrios Giannios and Brian D. Metzger of Princeton University; Andrew J. Levan of the University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom; Nial R. Tanvir, Paul T. O’ Brien, Andrew R. King and Sergei Nayakshin of the University of Leicester in the U.K.; Fabio De Colle, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz and James Guillochon of UC Santa Cruz; William H. Lee of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México in Mexico City; Andrew S. Fruchter of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.; and Alexander J. van der Horst of the Universities Space Research Association in Huntsville, Ala.
Levan is first author of the companion Science Express paper, and leader of the Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope observation team.
Bloom and his laboratory are supported by grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation.
The ‘experts’ are not guessing when it comes to BB, general relativity, black holes.
All this is precision science.
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malagaview says:
June 19, 2011 at 5:22 pm
======
So, have you anything to say?
I’m waiting.
u.k.(us) says:
June 19, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Thanks Leif, I just thought your comment was funny.
I was referring to the gamma ray “flash”, when I called them guesses.
What happens when black holes combine ?
The flashes last from 0.3 seconds to 30 seconds, so on a cosmic scale can surely be called flashes.
When black holes combine you get a bigger one, and a lot of gravitational waves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVgPplOgB1g
tallbloke asks:
Have you got some links to these photos?
Both the Keck and European Southern Observatories have been taking pictures of the galactic center for about 15 years. It has only been recently (mid-90s) with the development of ground based near-infared telescopes that astronomers have been able to peer beyond the intervening dust and gas to observe stars in the Milky Way galactic center. These two independent (and extremely competitive) teams have come to the same conclusion from the observation of the orbit of stars around an object that emits very little light, except as beng said, an occasional x-ray emission.
There are several movies out there, one from Keck is:
The scientific papers, data, etc., can be found at both the Keck and ESO websites. It should be noted that one need not use Einstein’s General Theory to derive the mass of the invisible partner, Newton’s will do just fine. Indeed, they have tracked the complete orbit of one star, SO-2, that comes within 90 astronomical units of the black hole (90 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun). To put this in perspective, that distance is about 2 X the orbital radius of Pluto, or about 12 light-hours.
Now pack 4 million solar masses within the size of the solar system and ask what could exits there that emits very little light in the vis-IR range? Certainly not normal stars, since they would be detectable, and we can see at least a dozen orbiting the object (an excellent internal control). To not be a black hole, 4 million solar masses of matter have to be present in a object whose radius is large enough that the escape velocity from the surface is smaller than the speed of light.
What kind of matter could such an object be made of? Can’t be a neutron star since the upper limit is ~10 solar masses IIRC.
So we have an object that is 400,000 times the mass of the largest neutron star. Once you get a denser object, where the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light, it really doesn’t matter what it’s made of: it’s a black hole.
Although black holes seem esoteric and theoretical (though no more so than say an electron), study of these objects have surprisingly shed light on subjects much closer to home in condensed matter physics.
If one would really like to learn more about, black holes, the big bang and other modern physics, you cannot do better than the series of lectures by Stanford’s Lenny Susskind. He has lectures that cover everything from classical mechanics to cosmology — an amazing gift to us all. They are not as in depth as a normal graduate course, but they are sufficiently rigorous for a jumping off point into reading and digesting the primary literature.
Not enough math background? The web has several excellent lecture series from MIT and others. One piece of advice for those without a math background, don’t try to learn all of the math at once. Rather, when you encounter something new, go find the lectures that deal with that part of mathematics and play with the problems. Then return to Susskind’s lectures and apply what you have just learned. The Systems Biology program at Princeton uses this technique, calling it just in time math. One is introduced to a particular area in their math course and soon thereafter are applying what they have learned in their physics, chemistry and biology courses.
philw1776 says:
June 18, 2011 at 6:17 pm
I am disappointed at the level of cynicism based on ignorance expressed towards this astrophysics article. The damage that AGW proponents have done towards the public’s attitude to real physics and science is huge.
I completely concur.
RandomReal[] says:
June 19, 2011 at 9:28 pm
philw1776 says:
June 18, 2011 at 6:17 pm
“I am disappointed at the level of cynicism based on ignorance expressed towards this astrophysics article. The damage that AGW proponents have done towards the public’s attitude to real physics and science is huge.”
I completely concur.
I think that it is not only AGW that is to blame. There is a general upswing in pseudo-science, astrology, etc. What Carl Sagan called “our demon-haunted world”. Just reading most of the comments here [and on many other topics] can be a depressing experience. And not only on this blog. The problem is everywhere.
There is a general upswing in pseudo-science
Totally agree… there has been a general upswing in Post-Normal Science.
*****
RandomReal[] says:
June 19, 2011 at 9:28 pm
*****
Thanks for responding, Random. Good info. Detecting a black hole in our galaxy’s center (& other galaxies, too) is a landmark discovery, only to be ignorantly dismissed by some. Oh well….
And I’m w/Leif, it’s frustrating dealing w/some posters on many subjects, not just astronomy (AWG, of course). Universe Today is a reasonably good astronomy site, but polluted w/”Electric Universe” posters — tho there are some excellent posters there too.
Lief, Random, Beng. et al,
Though I agree with you all re relativity and black holes, BB is still only one explanation of how it all started. The “higher energy level” theories such as FTL (faster than light) as well as the concept that phisical rules may be local in nature (see the info on the fine structure constant being different in different directions in space) may shed further light on our physical world and lead to a more precise theory than relativity that can include quantum physics. In any event both relativity and quantum physics are much more precise, observation based science than is climate science. I am surprised at some of the posts on this site and feel they may reflect what has happened to our educational system over the past 40 years as well as the pseudoscience being popularized by AGW.
Jim G says:
June 20, 2011 at 8:34 am
The “higher energy level” theories such as FTL (faster than light) as well as the concept that phisical rules may be local in nature (see the info on the fine structure constant being different in different directions in space)
Are still on the fringe of valid physics and do not have the detailed predictions and understanding the BB gives us, e.g. about the structure of the cosmic microwave background caused by the sound waves that originated in the big “Bang”, e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/CosmicSoundWaves.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 20, 2011 at 8:58 am
Jim G says:
June 20, 2011 at 8:34 am
The “higher energy level” theories such as FTL (faster than light) as well as the concept that phisical rules may be local in nature (see the info on the fine structure constant being different in different directions in space)
“Are still on the fringe of valid physics and do not have the detailed predictions and understanding the BB gives us, e.g. about the structure of the cosmic microwave background caused by the sound waves that originated in the big “Bang”, e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/CosmicSoundWaves.pdf”
True, but no one is claiming they are “the answer”, only that they clear up some of the inconsistencies in present theory, though they create some of their own. In particular the fine structure constant info is from observations from two different sources and is the type of data that causes real science to be done as it contradicts present beliefs that physical laws are the same everywhere. I have copied the sound wave link and will give it the time it deserves when I go over it.
Jim G says:
June 20, 2011 at 9:25 am
True, but no one is claiming they are “the answer”, only that they clear up some of the inconsistencies in present theory
And what would they be?
In particular the fine structure constant info is from observations from two different sources and is the type of data that causes real science to be done as it contradicts present beliefs that physical laws are the same everywhere.
These observations are not on firm ground and are not generally accepted as valid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant#Is_the_fine_structure_constant_actually_constant.3F
Lief, Random, Beng. et al,
Though I agree with you all re relativity and black holes, BB is still only one explanation of how it all started. The “higher energy level” theories such as FTL (faster than light) as well as the concept that phisical rules may be local in nature (see thLeif Svalgaard says:
June 20, 2011 at 10:31 am
Jim G says:
June 20, 2011 at 9:25 am
True, but no one is claiming they are “the answer”, only that they clear up some of the inconsistencies in present theory
And what would they be?
In particular the fine structure constant info is from observations from two different sources and is the type of data that causes real science to be done as it contradicts present beliefs that physical laws are the same everywhere.
“These observations are not on firm ground and are not generally accepted as valid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant#Is_the_fine_structure_constant_actually_constant.3F”
Einstein’s relativity was likewise not accepted for several years, however, though these observations may as yet not be “on firm ground” they are observationally based and true science compared to all of the conjecture and computer models being sold as climate science today. And again, none of those involved are claiming they have the answer, only raising questions based upon most recent observations on the forefront of what is technologically possible with today’s equipment.
Jim G says:
June 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Einstein’s relativity was likewise not accepted for several years, however, though these observations may as yet not be “on firm ground” they are observationally based and true science compared to all of the conjecture and computer models being sold as climate science today. And again, none of those involved are claiming they have the answer, only raising questions based upon most recent observations on the forefront of what is technologically possible with today’s equipment.
I think you have missed about half a century’s worth of research. Today – with topnotch equipment – Einstein has passed every single test with flying colors and with ever increasing precision. There is not a single well-observed phenomenon that is in conflict with Einstein’s general relativity. Now, it is every scientist’s dream to prove Einstein wrong. None have succeeded, and there are no open questions. This is quite remarkable, but such is it.
Leif Svalgaard says:
” I think you have missed about half a century’s worth of research. Today – with topnotch equipment – Einstein has passed every single test with flying colors and with ever increasing precision. There is not a single well-observed phenomenon that is in conflict with Einstein’s general relativity. Now, it is every scientist’s dream to prove Einstein wrong. None have succeeded, and there are no open questions. This is quite remarkable, but such is it.”
You have obviuosly not read what I have written above. I am well aware of the track record of Einstien and the tests which have been done at various levels of statistical significance and that NONE prove him wrong, however, when he first published his findings were not accepted, as I also said above. The point is that since quantum physics and relativity have yet to be reconciled to one and other, scientists continue to attempt to reconcile them which may result in CHANGES or additions to either or both and these may be relevent at higher energy levels.
The fine structure information is very interesting and leads people to think out of the box though I am also aware that it is not yet accepted by all.
Why so confrontational?
Jim G
Einstein has passed every single test with flying colors and with ever increasing precision. There is not a single well-observed phenomenon that is in conflict with Einstein’s general relativity.
Actually, there all kinds of problems. For example, the claim of equivalence says that if you in a rocket ship accelerating (due to motion), you cannot tell the difference between that and acceleration due to gravity. (and we see all kinds of physics books show this experiment or some such elevator.
In fact if you measure the force of gravity at you head and your toes (or the force on the object at the start and end of the test, then you can tell the difference between the two events. If the measured force is the same then acceleration is due to motion. If the acceleration is due to a gravitational field (gravity) then the force in the two locations will be different since you moving towards the gravitational center (and it gets STRONGER as you move closer). So, place a gravity meter on your toes, and one on your head, and you be able to tell if your weight is due to gravity or due to acceleration. It very simple logic to state that if the meters read different, then we talking about gravity.
Einstein claims these two events are equivalent, and clearly I just demonstrated that they are not.