An international team of astronomers has made a breakthrough discovery, detecting the first radio-bright tidal disruption event (TDE) occurring far outside a galaxy’s core. The event, dubbed AT 2024tvd, involves a massive black hole that is wandering—located over 2,600 light-years away from where it should be. The radio signals produced as the black hole tore apart a star and launched jets of material are evolving faster than anything previously observed in TDEs. This unique, off-center position provides the clearest evidence yet for the existence of “wandering” supermassive black holes, which current theories suggest are ejected during galaxy mergers. The discovery is compelling scientists to revise their models of how black holes evolve and where they are located, opening up new possibilities for finding a potentially numerous unseen population of these cosmic wanderers throughout the universe.
Source: National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Link: https://public.nrao.edu/news/astronomers-discover-fastest-evolving-radio-signals-ever-observed/
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