Astronomers have determined the source of an incredibly bright X-ray, optical, and radio signal appearing from halfway across the Universe. Named AT 2022cmc, the signal was discovered earlier this year by the Zwicky Transient Facility in California. Findings published today (November 30) in Natur
by a black hole’s tidal forces. However, AT 2022cmc is brighter than any TDE discovered to date, and, at some 8.5 billion light years away, is also the farthest TDE ever detected.Very Large Telescope, said: “Our spectrum told us that the source was hot: around 30,000 degrees, which is typical for a TDE. But we also saw some absorption of light by the galaxy where this event occurred.
AT 2022cmc is the fourth Doppler-boosted TDE ever detected and the first such event that has been observed since 2011. It is also the first boosted TDE discovered using an optical sky survey. As more powerful telescopes start-up in the coming years, they will reveal more TDEs, which can shed light on how supermassive black holes grow and shape the galaxies around them.
“Things looked pretty normal the first three days,” recalls Dheeraj “DJ” Pasham, who was first author on the study. “Then we looked at it with an X-ray telescope, and what we found was, the source was 100 times more powerful than the most powerful gamma-ray burst afterglow.” The extreme X-ray activity is believed to be powered by an “extreme accretion episode” when the shredded star creates a whirlpool of debris as it falls into the black hole. Indeed, the team found that AT 2022cmc’s X-ray luminosity was comparable to, though brighter than, three previously detected TDEs.
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