Black hole colliding with star discovered
Astronomers found that a black hole or neutron star spiraling around a companion star collided with its core and caused a supernova to explode. The first ever observation of such a catastrophic event is reported in an article published in the journal Science.
Scientists have observed the object VT 1210 + 4956, which emitted bright radio emission, as part of the multi-year Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) project. The radiation is known to emanate from the outskirts of a dwarf star-forming galaxy about 480 million light-years from Earth. In 2014, instruments on the ISS recorded a burst of X-rays emanating from a radio source.
The data obtained allowed astronomers to reconstruct events. Initially, VT 1210 + 4956 was a pair of massive stars orbiting close to each other. One of them had a greater mass than the other, and eventually exploded like a supernova, leaving behind either a black hole or a superdense neutron star. This compact object gradually approached the second star, and about 300 years ago it entered the upper atmosphere of the star. As a result of the interaction, stellar gas began to be thrown outward, forming a ring around both objects.
A black hole or neutron star made its way to the core of a companion star, disrupting the nuclear fusion that keeps the star from collapsing, causing it to explode like a supernova. In this case, a jet of stellar material was ejected, which reached near-light speeds.
