A Star That Defied Death: New Findings Sheds Light on One of the Cosmos' Most Extreme Environments - SciTechDaily

A group of physicists has developed a model that charts the unexpected orbit of a star around a supermassive black hole, uncovering new insights into one of the cosmos’ most extreme environments.

The stripped outer layers of the star form the bright accretion disk, which researchers can study using X-Ray and Ultraviolet /Optical telescopes that observe light from distant galaxies.

According to Wevers, having the opportunity to study a partial TDE gives unprecedented insight into the existence of supermassive black holes and the orbital dynamics of stars in the centers of galaxies.

For approximately 600 days the source stayed bright in the X-ray, but then abruptly went dark and was undetectable – a result of the stellar remnant core returning to a black hole, explains MIT physicist Dheeraj R. Pasham.

Syracuse physicist Eric Coughlin explains that they estimate between 1 to 10% of the mass of the star is lost each time it passes the black hole, with the large range due to uncertainty in modeling the emission from the TDE.

“In the future, it is likely that more systems will be checked for late-time flares, especially now that this project puts forth a theoretical picture of the capture of the star through a dynamical exchange process and the ensuing repeated partial tidal disruption,” says Coughlin.