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<\/a><\/p>\nThis composite image features X-ray and optical data of the LFBOT event AT 2024wpp. Image credit: NASA \/ CXC \/ UC Berkeley \/ Nayana et al. \/ Legacy Survey \/ DECaLS \/ BASS \/ MzLS \/ SAO \/ P. Edmonds \/ N. Wolk.<\/p>\n
LFBOTs got their name because they are bright \u2014 they\u2019re visible over distances of hundreds of millions to billions of light-years \u2014 and last for only a few days.<\/p>\n
They produce high-energy light ranging from the blue end of the optical spectrum through ultraviolet and X-ray.<\/p>\n
The first was seen in 2014, but the first with sufficient data to analyze was recorded in 2018 and, per the standard naming convention, was called AT 2018cow.<\/p>\n
The name led researchers to refer to it as the Cow, and subsequent LFBOTs have been called, tongue in cheek, the Koala (ZTF18abvkwla), the Tasmanian devil (AT 2022tsd) and the Finch (AT 2023fhn). Perhaps AT 2024wpp will be known as the Wasp.<\/p>\n
The realization that AT 2024wpp could not have resulted from a supernova came after the researchers calculated the energy it emitted.<\/p>\n
It turned out to be 100 times greater than what would be produced in a normal supernova.<\/p>\n
The radiated energy would require the conversion of about 10% of the rest-mass of the Sun into energy over a very short time scale of weeks.<\/p>\n
Specifically, the Gemini South observations revealed<\/a> an excess of near-infrared light being emitted from the source.<\/p>\n This is only the second time astronomers have observed such a phenomenon \u2014 the other case being AT 2018cow \u2014 which is clearly not present in ordinary stellar explosions.<\/p>\n These observations establish the near-infrared excess as a hallmark feature of FBOTs, though no model can explain this occurrence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sheer amount of radiated energy from these bursts is so large that you can\u2019t power them with a core collapse stellar explosion \u2014 or any other type of normal stellar explosion,\u201d said Natalie LeBaron, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n \u201cThe main message from AT 2024wpp is that the model that we started off with is wrong. It\u2019s definitely not just an exploding star.\u201d<\/p>\n The scientists hypothesize that the intense, high-energy light emitted during this extreme tidal disruption was a consequence of the long parasitic history of the black hole binary system.<\/p>\n As they reconstruct this history, the black hole had been sucking material from its companion for a long time, completely enshrouding itself in a halo of material too far from the black hole for it to swallow.<\/p>\n Then, when the companion star finally got too close and was torn apart, the new material became entrained into the rotating accretion disk and slammed against the existing material, generating X-ray, ultraviolet, and blue light.<\/p>\n Much of the gas from the companion also ended up swirling toward the poles of the black hole, where it was ejected as a jet of material.<\/p>\n