India’s AstroSat teams up with NASA to Unravel Black Hole’s Mystery

A significant astronomical event has unfolded, revealing the powerful interactions between a massive black hole and its surrounding environment. Researchers from NASA and India’s ISRO have used multiple space observatories, including Chandra, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), the Swift Observatory, and India’s AstroSat, to observe the aftermath of a star’s destruction by a black hole. This study has uncovered crucial connections between previously unlinked cosmic phenomena.

Tidal Disruption Events and Their Consequences

In 2019, astronomers detected the destruction of a star that ventured too close to a black hole, leading to what is known as a tidal disruption event (TDE). The remnants of the star formed an expanding debris disk, which over time began to interact with another orbiting star or possibly a smaller black hole. This interaction has created regular bursts of X-rays, occurring approximately every 48 hours as the orbiting star collides with the debris disk, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a press release. Matt Nicholl, an astrophysicist at Queen’s University Belfast, remarked that this scenario resembles a diver entering a pool, generating splashes with each entry.

Linking TDEs and Quasi-Periodic Eruptions

Previous studies had identified various tidal disruption events, but the connection between TDEs and a newly recognised category of cosmic phenomena called quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs) remained speculative. Co-author Dheeraj Pasham, affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted the significance of this discovery in linking these events.

Observational Breakthroughs with AstroSat

The TDE, designated AT2019qiz, was initially observed at the Palomar Observatory’s Zwicky Transient Facility. Follow-up studies with NASA’s observatories revealed that the debris disk had grown significantly, allowing any orbiting object with a week-long period to collide with it. Researchers, including Gulab Dewangan from the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, acknowledged the unique capabilities of AstroSat in contributing to this research.

Implications for Future Research

The findings indicate that researchers must allow time for the debris disk to expand sufficiently before observing eruptions. This insight could assist in the search for additional QPEs linked to tidal disruptions, potentially enhancing our understanding of the environment surrounding supermassive black holes.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a press release)