While outer space is full of enigmatic phenomena, experts from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have puzzled a specific galaxy. The space agency is now investigating a galaxy spotted 570 million light-years away, which erupts periodically every 114 days. Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which first observed the eruption, said the eruption had occurred 20 times so far.
‘This is the most predictable and frequently recurring multi-wavelength we’ve seen from the core of a galaxy, and it gives us a unique opportunity to study this extragalactic Old Faithful in detail. We think a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy creates the eruptions because it partially digests a giant star, ‘said Anna Payne, a Nasa graduate fellow at the University of Hawaii in Mānoa, in a statement. .
Three possible explanations
In the aftermath, NASA set out three possible explanations for the eruption called ASASSN-14ko. The first is that it is caused by interactions between the disks of two black holes. Recent data shows that the two black holes exist, but they do not appear to be spinning enough to cause the flares. The second possibility is that a passing star was intercepted by the black hole, but because the torches are consistent in their shape, scientists consider them unlikely. The third and most plausible statement speaks of a partial disruption of the tide when a star gets too close to a black hole and matter is constantly being given off. The orbit of the star is not circular, which means that each time it gets closer to the black hole and more mass becomes exhausted.
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“ASASSN-14ko is currently our best example of periodic volatility in an active galaxy, despite decades of other claims, because the timing of the torches is very consistent over the six years of data that Anna and her team analyzed,” Jeremy said. Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who studied black holes but was not involved in the research. “This result is a true powerhouse of observation waves on multiple waves,” NASA said in a statement.
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