Astronomers have recently discovered a supermassive black hole that is shredding a star, and they’ve named it “Scary Barbie.” This discovery was made possible by the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
The team of astronomers used AI to comb through data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. TESS is an all-sky survey mission that looks for planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. The AI found something unusual in the data: two stars orbiting each other every 15 hours.
This binary star system caught the attention of researchers because one of the stars had been previously identified as a white dwarf – which means it has already gone through its life cycle and burned out most of its fuel. White dwarfs are usually much smaller than their companion stars, but this one was unusually large compared to its partner star – about half its size!
Further investigation revealed that this white dwarf was actually being shredded by an incredibly powerful force: a supermassive black hole! It turns out that Scary Barbie is located at least 10,000 light years away from Earth in another galaxy called 2MASX J07001137-6602251. This makes it one of only 20 such systems ever discovered in our universe so far!
The research team believes that Scary Barbie could be part of what’s known as an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH), which would make it even more unique since these types are thought to exist but have never been observed before now. If confirmed, this would be groundbreaking news for astronomy and astrophysics!
To further investigate Scary Barbie, scientists plan on using X-ray telescopes like Chandra and NuSTAR to get better images and learn more about how IMBHs form and evolve over time. They also hope to use radio telescopes like ALMA or MeerKAT to measure any gas or dust around the system – if there is any present at all!
In addition to helping us understand more about IMBHs, discovering Scary Barbie also shows just how powerful AI can be when applied correctly in scientific research projects like this one. By leveraging machine learning algorithms with vast amounts of data collected from space missions like TESS, we can uncover new insights into our universe faster than ever before!
It will certainly be exciting to see what else AI helps us discover next… who knows? Maybe we’ll find something even scarier than Scary Barbie out there waiting for us? Only time will tell… |Meet Scary Barbie: AI helped discover this supermassive black hole shredding a star|Science|Indian Express
