An artist’s concept of a tidal riot event, when a star comes too close to a terrifying black hole and is torn apart. A situation like this may illuminate the host galaxy many times greater than its normal brightness. Image via DESY / Communication Science.
Cosmic rays are energetic particles that travel through space close to the speed of light. Much of the origin of cosmic rays has been suggested, and some has been proven; for example, supernova explosions are generated. But supernovae cannot explain how many cosmic rays invade the Earth all the time, so the origins of cosmic rays remain largely a mystery. In particular, high-energy neutrinos are largely unexplained (although some come from blazars). Now, astronomers have identified an energetic neutrino origin, linking it to a cataclysmic event in which a star got too close to a real-life black hole and was peeled off.
This result was published in the peer-reviewed journal Astronomy of nature on February 22, 2021.
When a star passes too close to a supernatural black hole – the type believed to be in the center of most galaxies, including our Milky Way – the hole becomes black shakes the star, tearing it apart, in such a brutal event that it makes the center of the galaxy glow many times brighter than usual, for several years. During this tidal wave event, the star goes through a stretching process, called spaghettification. Tidal turbulence incidents are no longer understood, and the new research is helping to shed light on it.
The team, led by scientist Robert Stein, discovered the neutrino back to what they think may be a natural grain accelerator. He explained:
This is the first neutrino linked to a tidal disturbance event, and it provides us with valuable evidence. Tidal turbulence incidents are not well understood. The detection of the neutrino indicates a moderately powerful engine near the collection disk, spewing out fast particles. And the complete analysis of data from radio, optical and ultraviolet telescopes provides further evidence that the [tidal disruption event] acts as a gigantic granular accelerator.
Neutrinos have significantly smaller subatomic grains sometimes formed in material accelerators on Earth, such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Cosmrin ray neutrinos, however, are up to 1,000 times more potent than manufactured ones.
This particular neutrino is 10 times as vibrant as an earthly man and came from a distant galaxy about 690 million light-years away, towards our constellation Delphinus the Dolphin. The galaxy is known as the 2MASX J20570298 + 1412165 Neutral Argument. When the tidal wave event (also known as AT2019dsg) was discovered in April 2019, astronauts began closely monitoring it with several telescopes. in optical, ultraviolet, X-ray and radio waves, covering a large proportion. of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Surprisingly, the cosine neutrino radiation was not detected until five months after the tidal disturbance event at its strongest. The discovery was made by the Neutrino IceCube Observatory at the South Pole Station of Amundsen-Scott in Antarctica (neutrinos can only be detected by specialized neutrino observatories) and made its way back to space in the AT2019dsg , the event of a tidal riot. There is only a 0.2% chance that the neutrino will not come from the event. The timing of the discovery creates even more questions though: when and what process are the neutrinos made of?
Artist’s impression of the disk originating around the supermassive black hole AT2019dsg in the center of the galaxy in the constellation Delphinus. The large mass of the black hole bends space-time, so light can be seen from beyond the collection disk above and below the black hole. Image via DESY.
Sjoert van Velzen, assistant professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands and one of the paper’s co-authors, said:
We predicted that there may be a link between neutrinos and tidal disturbances, and seeing that for the first time in the data is just very interesting. This is another example of the power of multi-message astronomy, using a combination of light, particles, and space-time ripples to learn more about the cosmos. When I was a graduate student, this new era of astronomy was thought to be coming, but now to be a part of it is very rewarding.
NASA made an informative video about this event and the involvement of their SWIFT telescope in the observations:
Bottom line: Cosmic astronauts, especially high-energy neutrinos, were originally discovered by astronauts: a cataclysmic tidal wave event, where a star is torn to pieces with a huge black hole in the center of the galaxy.
Source: Incident of tidal disturbance coincidence with energetic neutrino
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