NASA scientists have found something shocking. So, if this thing surprised them, can you imagine how exciting it is going to be for us? I mean, they are so used to seeing many mysterious things in space. We are talking about a phenomenon that shouldn’t exist, according to everything known about stars. Scientists saw a star that bright, disappeared, and then exploded in a way nobody has ever seen.
Such a strange phenomenon made scientists question again what they thought they knew about how bigger stars die and what happens at the previous moments. So, let’s find out a bit more about this discovery.
How NASA captured the phenomenon
NASA detected this thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), by using an advanced system capable of observing the sky and detecting sudden changes. This way astronomers could find an unusual supernova (a stellar explosion) called SN 2023zkd.
This explosion happened about 730 million light years from Earth. The automated system known as Zwicky Transient Facility got to detect it just a few hours after it happened, which allowed telescopes around the world to observe it almost in real time.
The discovery was possible thanks to machine learning software developed at the University of California, Santa Cruz. This technology can spot unusual patterns in data much faster than human eyes can. According to Ryan Foley, an astronomy professor at the university, “humans are good at noticing strange things, but algorithms can find patterns much sooner.” This gave NASA the time it needed to capture every stage of the explosion — something that rarely happens in astronomy.
The supernova
What made the supernova SN 2023zkd so special was its behavior because a supernova tends to bright once and then slowly loses its brightness. However, this one had two brightness peaks: it was bright, then off, and it showed that brightness again. Both peaks happened about 240 days apart and before the explosion the star had been emitting light for almost 4 years!
This is what astronomers had never seen before, and it proves it was a totally different kind of supernova.
The cause
After analyzing the data, scientists concluded this explosion happened because the star had a black hole as a partner in a double system. The black hole, with its gravity force, started to take material from the star and it was so strong that the star ended up exploding before being completely absorbed.
For years, the star had been losing gas and dust, forming rings around it. When it exploded, the remains crashed against that material, so:
The first brightness peak happened when the explosion crashed outer rings.
The second brightness peak was later, when crashing against a thicker layer of gas and dust.
This finding is the first confirmed evidence that a supernova can happen due to the interaction between a star and a black hole.
Importance of this NASA finding
As you can see, we are not talking about another supernova, this is one of the most important discoveries in modern astronomy. Let’s highlight the key data of this NASA discovery to be aware of what this means for science:
It’s the first confirmed case of a supernova interacting with a black hole.
It showed a double brightness pattern over 240 days.
The star showed four years of activity before the explosion.
It was detected in real time using AI technology.
NASA’s use of AI has revolutionized the way astronomers study space. Before this, many of these phenomena were discovered after they happened, but now they can be detected at the moment. The great thing about this? It allows them to study them in more detail.