Black hole produced the brightest flare in history
Astronomers at the Palomar Observatory of the California Institute of Technology have recorded the most powerful radiation emanating from a supermassive black hole that "swallowed" a nearby star. The flare turned out to be brighter than 10 trillion suns and surpassed all previously observed phenomena of this kind. This was reported on November 4 by Popular Science magazine.
The event occurred in the active galactic core J2245+3743, whose mass is about 500 million times the mass of the Sun. The observations were conducted using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) system and the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey program. Radiation from the black hole was first recorded back in 2018, but it wasn't until 2023 that scientists realized that the flare wasn't fading as fast as expected.
"This is unlike any active galactic nucleus that we have ever seen," said Matthew Graham, a professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, a researcher on the ZTF project and co-author of the study.
Observations have shown that the brightness of J2245+3743 has increased by 40 times, and the total luminous flux has reached a record level. It is noted that at first the research team was not sure what caused such a surge in activity, and a supernova was not suitable as an explanation. According to co-author of the study, astronomer from the City University of New York K. E. Saavik Ford, supernovae are not bright enough to explain this phenomenon.
Scientists believe that the flare was caused by the so—called tidal disruption event (TDE), a phenomenon when a black hole captures a nearby star with its gravitational field and begins to draw energy from it. It is noted that sometimes energy transfer occurs in both directions.
"Stars of this mass are rare, but we believe that stars inside the disk of the active galactic core may increase in size. Matter from the disk is dumped onto the stars, causing them to increase in mass," explained Ford.
In total, about 100 such events have been recorded in the history of observations, but almost none of them occurred in active galactic nuclei. Usually, the surrounding disk hides the tidal disruption event from even the most sensitive instruments, but J2245+3743 turned out to be so powerful that its radiation could not be overlooked.
For comparison, the previous record-breaking event, recorded in 2021 and given the unofficial name "Scary Barbie," was 30 times weaker than the current one. The black hole J2245+3743 is located about 10 billion light-years away and is one of the oldest objects in the universe.
Due to the effect of cosmological time dilation, astronomers observe this event in slow motion.
"This phenomenon is called cosmological time dilation, caused by the stretching of space and time. As light moves towards us through the expanding space, its wavelength increases, as does time itself. Seven years here is two years there. We are observing how the event is reproduced in the opposite direction at a quarter of the speed," said Graham.
Although J2245+3743 currently holds the title of the brightest flare, scientists believe that similar phenomena can occur everywhere in the universe. Graham emphasized the contribution of ZTF, noting that this system would not have been able to detect the phenomenon.
Earlier, on October 7, Science Daily magazine reported on scientists' assumption regarding the ability of black holes to create high-energy rays. It was noted that this radiation consists of protons and atomic nuclei with an energy of up to 10-20 electron volts. At the same time, it was emphasized that the rays do not pose a danger to people on Earth, but they can become a threat to astronauts.
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