A Distant Galaxy Is Flaring With Strange Regularity, And Scientists Have Figured Out Why
13 JANUARY 2021
Roughly every 114 days, almost like clockwork, a galaxy 570 million light-years away lights up like a firework. Since at least 2014, our observatories have recorded this strange behaviour; now, astronomers have put the pieces together to figure out why.
In the centre of the spiral galaxy, named ESO 253-G003, a supermassive black hole is being orbited by a star that, every 114 days, swings close enough for some of its material to be slurped up, causing a brilliant flare of light across multiple wavelengths. Then, it moves away, surviving to be slurped again on its next close approach.
| UPDATED: 20:48, Wed, Jan 13, 2021
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Data derived from space agency NASA s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), has allowed black hole researchers to examine the reliably repeated outbursts of an event dubbed ASASSN-14ko. This involves the violent eruption of light predictably flashing roughly every 114 days.
The centers of galaxies with actively feeding supermassive black holes are already astounding environments. Now, a team of researchers led by a graduate student from the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) has found an even more interesting oddball. Feeding black holes typically increase and decrease in brightness similar to the Kilauea volcano, becoming more or less active over time in unpredictable ways. However, the newly discovered black hole is more like Old Faithful geyser at Yellowstone National Park, erupting repeatedly at predictable times.
Astronomers classify galaxies with unusually bright and variable centers as active galaxies. The active centers can produce much more energy than the combined contribution of all the stars in the host galaxy. The excess energy can be seen at visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray wavelengths. Astrophysicists think the extra emission comes from near the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole, where a swirling disk of g