WASHINGTON — Astronomers may have lucked into the ultimate in cosmic baby pictures: a voracious black hole fresh from its violent birth.
After watching a star in another galaxy that was seen in 1979 exploding into a supernova, astronomers now believe the star’s death wasn’t an ordinary one. The star’s explosion was big enough to cause a black hole to develop in its wake. They think it’s a black hole because they see something steadily consuming the gassy remnants of the exploded star, which is a telltale sign of a black hole, which sucks up everything in sight.
In the 30 years since the explosion of this star was seen, this baby black hole has eaten about the equivalent of the Earth in mass, which is about as big as black-hole appetites can get, said Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb. Loeb, co-author of a paper in the journal New Astronomy, discussed the findings at a National Aeronautics and Space Administration news conference Monday.
On a cosmic scale, the mass of the Earth is not an awful lot to eat, but from Earth’s point of view, it’s kind of awesome, said NASA astrophysicist Kimberly Weaver.
Black holes are warped regions in space that are so dense that nothing — not even light — escapes. Scientists in this case see energy bursts from matter as it is sucked in. That matter is heavy gas from the exploded star, and possibly a partner star that may have been next to it, Weaver said.
“It’s the first time we’re seeing a black hole being born in a normal supernova,” Loeb said. “We’re able to learn about environments that cannot be reproduced in the lab and can only be observed in the universe.”
While black holes are seen throughout the universe, it is unusual to witness one from near birth that “evolves and changes into its youthful stages,” said Weaver. And unlike other black holes, thanks to the keen eye of a Maryland schoolteacher who witnessed the supernova in 1979, astronomers know exactly when this black hole was born, Weaver said.
By continuing to follow the black hole — which is about 50 million light-years away — future astronomers will learn just how much material is left over from the star’s explosion, said Dan Patnaude of Harvard, a study co-author.
