Space
It appears that stars can not only fall into black holes, but can also become victims of black holes in a catastrophic manner, leading to an exceptionally prolonged explosion as the star is devoured from the inside
This orange dot indicates a gamma-ray burst that signals an extraordinary phenomenon
ESO/A. Levan, A. Martin-Carrillo et al.
A black hole that has previously consumed a star appears to retaliate by devouring it from the inside out, leading to a gamma-ray burst detected approximately 9 billion light-years from Earth.
The event, designated GRB 250702B, was initially identified by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in July. These bursts are intense flashes resulting from jets emitted by energetic occurrences, like massive stars collapsing into black holes or neutron stars merging, and typically last just a few minutes.
In contrast, GRB 250702B persisted for 25,000 seconds—approximately 7 hours—making it the longest gamma-ray burst recorded. While scientists struggled to provide an explanation, Eliza Neights and her team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have proposed a unique and rare hypothesis.
“The only model that naturally accounts for the observed traits of GRB 250702B is the infall of a stellar-mass black hole into a star,” the authors state in their research publication.
During typical lengthy gamma-ray bursts, a massive star collapses to form a black hole, emitting jets in its dying moments. However, this case suggests a reversal—an existing black hole spiraled into a companion star that had experienced outer layer expansion late in its life, causing the black hole to shed angular momentum and cascade toward the star’s core.
This black hole likely consumed the star from the inside out, producing the potent jets observed as GRB 250702B and possibly triggering a faint supernova, although it would be too dim to be detected from such a distance, even using the James Webb Space Telescope.
This explanation appears plausible for how such an ultra-long gamma-ray burst might manifest, according to Hendrik van Eerten from the University of Bath in the UK. “The argument presented in this paper is highly convincing,” he asserts.
Neights and her colleagues anticipate that more similar occurrences may be identified in the future, aided by new telescopes like the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile. Presently, GRB 250702B remains “an absurdity,” remarks Van Eerten.
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