American Friends of Tel Aviv University | 2019 Jan 14
These "giant monsters" were observed suddenly devouring gas in their surroundings
Supermassive black holes weigh millions to billions times more than our sun and lie at the center of most galaxies. A supermassive black hole several million times the mass of the sun is situated in the heart of our very own Milky Way.
Despite how commonplace supermassive black holes are, it remains unclear how they grow to such enormous proportions. Some black holes constantly swallow gas in their surroundings, some suddenly swallow whole stars. But neither theory independently explains how supermassive black holes can "switch on" so unexpectedly and keep growing so fast for a long period.
A new study finds that some supermassive black holes are triggered to grow, suddenly devouring a large amount of gas in their surroundings.
In February 2017, the All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae discovered an event known as AT 2017bgt. This event was initially believed to be a "star swallowing" event, or a "tidal disruption" event, because the radiation emitted around the black hole grew more than 50 times brighter than what had been observed in 2004.
However, after extensive observations using a multitude of telescopes, a team of researchers concluded that AT 2017bgt represented a new way of "feeding" black holes. ...
LCO works with NASA and the ISS in Black Hole Discovery
Las Cumbres Observatory | 2019 Jan 14
A New Class of Flares from Accreting Supermassive Black Holes ~ Benny Trakhtenbrot et al
- Nature Astronomy (online 14 Jan 2019) DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0661-3