A Black Hole or Neutron Star Fell Into Another Star and Triggered a Supernova

What happens when you slam a neutron star (or black hole, take your pick) into a companion star? A supernova, that’s what. And for the first time ever, astronomers think they’ve spotted one.

Back in 2014 the MAXI instrument aboard the International Space Station detected a flare of X-rays from a dwarf, star-forming galaxy sitting 480 million light-years away from us. No big deal; it happens all the time.

Around the same time, a radio survey using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) called the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty centimeters (FIRST) didn’t find anything unusual in that patch of the sky. Also no big deal.

But then a follow-up survey, the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) which began observations in 2017, did find something: a bright source of radio emissions coming from the same place. Big deal.

The astronomers behind the survey think they’ve spotted something remarkable. A supernova detonation triggered by a massive case of stellar indigestion; a star consuming a companion black hole or neutron star.

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