NASA's Swift Mission Probes an Exotic Object: ‘Kicked’ Black Hole or Mega Star?

[brooklynite]

NASA:

An international team of researchers analyzing decades of observations from many facilities, including NASA's Swift satellite, has discovered an unusual source of light in a galaxy some 90 million light-years away.

The object's curious properties make it a good match for a supermassive black hole ejected from its home galaxy after merging with another giant black hole. But astronomers can't yet rule out an alternative possibility. The source, called SDSS1133, may be the remnant of a massive star that erupted for a record period of time before destroying itself in a supernova explosion.

"With the data we have in hand, we can't yet distinguish between these two scenarios," said lead researcher Michael Koss, an astronomer at ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. "One exciting discovery made with NASA's Swift is that the brightness of SDSS1133 has changed little in optical or ultraviolet light for a decade, which is not something typically seen in a young supernova remnant."

In a study published in the Nov. 21 edition of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Koss and his colleagues report that the source has brightened significantly in visible light during the past six months, a trend that, if maintained, would bolster the black hole interpretation. To analyze the object in greater detail, the team is planning ultraviolet observations with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope in October 2015.

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[Rex]

1. That is amazing.

One of the strangest things I've ever read about are black holes in space. Can you imagine the chaos of ejecting a supermassive black hole?

[hifiguy]

2. Astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology

are the most fascinating subjects in the world, at least to me. I am currently reading Michio Kaku's Hyperspace and it as incredibly involving. Wish I had got the math gene. I can get my head around the concepts but I just cannot grasp the math.