Latest news with #Gagliano
Business Recorder
a day ago
- Science
- Business Recorder
New type of supernova detected as black hole causes star to explode
WASHINGTON: Astronomers have observed the calamitous result of a star that picked the wrong dance partner. They have documented what appears to be a new type of supernova, as stellar explosions are known, that occurred when a massive star tried to swallow a black hole with which it had engaged in a lengthy pas de deux. The star, which was at least 10 times as massive as our sun, and the black hole, which had a similar mass, were gravitationally bound to one another in what is called a binary system. But as the distance separating them gradually narrowed, the black hole's immense gravitational pull appears to have distorted the star - stretching it out from its spherical shape - and siphoned off material before causing it to explode. 'We caught a massive star locked in a fatal tango with a black hole,' said astrophysicist Alexander Gagliano of the US National Science Foundation's Institute for AI and Fundamental Interactions located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lead author of the study published this week in the Astrophysical Journal, opens new tab. 'After shedding mass for years in a death spiral with the black hole, the massive star met its finale by exploding. It released more energy in a second than the sun has across its entire lifetime,' Gagliano added. The explosion occurred about 700 million light-years from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). 'The gravitational pulls of the two objects were actually similar because we think they had similar masses. But the star was much larger, so it was in the process of engulfing the black hole as the black hole pulled material off of it. The star was large but puffy, and the black hole was small but mighty. The black hole won out in the end,' Gagliano said. NASA launches spacecraft to explore metal-rich asteroid Psyche The researchers are not certain of the exact mechanism that caused the supernova. 'It's unclear if the distortion triggers an instability that drives the collapse of the star, and then the leftover stellar material gets rapidly eaten by the black hole, or if the black hole completely pulls the star apart before it goes supernova,' said Harvard University astrophysicist and study co-author Ashley Villar. 'The star has been pulled and morphed by the black hole in complex ways,' Villar added. The binary system started out with two massive stars orbiting each other as cosmic companions. But one of the two stars reached the end of its natural life cycle and exploded in a supernova, and its core collapsed to form a black hole, an extraordinarily dense object with gravity so strong that not even light can escape. 'This event reveals that some supernovae can be triggered by black hole companions, giving us new insights into how some stars end their lives,' Villar said. Stars that are at least eight times as massive as the sun appear destined to end their lives with a supernova. Those with a mass at least 20 times that of the sun will form a black hole after the explosion. An artificial intelligence algorithm designed to scan for unusual explosions in the cosmos in real time first detected the beginnings of the explosion, providing an alert that enabled astronomers to carry out follow-up observations immediately. By the time the explosion was completed, it had been observed by numerous ground-based and space-based telescopes. 'Our AI algorithm allowed us to launch a comprehensive observational study early enough to really see the full picture for the first time,' Gagliano said. Observations of the star dating to four years before the supernova revealed bright emissions that the astronomers believe were caused when the black hole guzzled material sucked off the star. For instance, the star's outer hydrogen layer appears to have been ripped off, exposing the helium layer below. The researchers observed bright emissions in the explosion's aftermath as the black hole consumed leftover stellar debris. In the end, the black hole became more massive and more powerful. Systems grouping two or more companions are quite common. Some of these multiples have a black hole as one of the companions. 'Our takeaway is that the fates of stars are incredibly impacted by their companion - or companions - in life. This event gives us an exciting window into how dramatically black holes can impact the deaths of massive stars,' Gagliano said.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
New type of supernova detected as black hole causes star to explode
(Corrects reference to Gagliano to lead author in paragraph 3 instead of co-author) By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Astronomers have observed the calamitous result of a star that picked the wrong dance partner. They have documented what appears to be a new type of supernova, as stellar explosions are known, that occurred when a massive star tried to swallow a black hole with which it had engaged in a lengthy pas de deux. The star, which was at least 10 times as massive as our sun, and the black hole, which had a similar mass, were gravitationally bound to one another in what is called a binary system. But as the distance separating them gradually narrowed, the black hole's immense gravitational pull appears to have distorted the star - stretching it out from its spherical shape - and siphoned off material before causing it to explode. "We caught a massive star locked in a fatal tango with a black hole," said astrophysicist Alexander Gagliano of the U.S. National Science Foundation's Institute for AI and Fundamental Interactions located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lead author of the study published this week in the Astrophysical Journal. "After shedding mass for years in a death spiral with the black hole, the massive star met its finale by exploding. It released more energy in a second than the sun has across its entire lifetime," Gagliano added. The explosion occurred about 700 million light-years from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). "The gravitational pulls of the two objects were actually similar because we think they had similar masses. But the star was much larger, so it was in the process of engulfing the black hole as the black hole pulled material off of it. The star was large but puffy, and the black hole was small but mighty. The black hole won out in the end," Gagliano said. The researchers are not certain of the exact mechanism that caused the supernova. "It's unclear if the distortion triggers an instability that drives the collapse of the star, and then the leftover stellar material gets rapidly eaten by the black hole, or if the black hole completely pulls the star apart before it goes supernova," said Harvard University astrophysicist and study co-author Ashley Villar. "The star has been pulled and morphed by the black hole in complex ways," Villar added. The binary system started out with two massive stars orbiting each other as cosmic companions. But one of the two stars reached the end of its natural life cycle and exploded in a supernova, and its core collapsed to form a black hole, an extraordinarily dense object with gravity so strong that not even light can escape. "This event reveals that some supernovae can be triggered by black hole companions, giving us new insights into how some stars end their lives," Villar said. Stars that are at least eight times as massive as the sun appear destined to end their lives with a supernova. Those with a mass at least 20 times that of the sun will form a black hole after the explosion. An artificial intelligence algorithm designed to scan for unusual explosions in the cosmos in real time first detected the beginnings of the explosion, providing an alert that enabled astronomers to carry out follow-up observations immediately. By the time the explosion was completed, it had been observed by numerous ground-based and space-based telescopes. "Our AI algorithm allowed us to launch a comprehensive observational study early enough to really see the full picture for the first time," Gagliano said. Observations of the star dating to four years before the supernova revealed bright emissions that the astronomers believe were caused when the black hole guzzled material sucked off the star. For instance, the star's outer hydrogen layer appears to have been ripped off, exposing the helium layer below. The researchers observed bright emissions in the explosion's aftermath as the black hole consumed leftover stellar debris. In the end, the black hole became more massive and more powerful. Systems grouping two or more companions are quite common. Some of these multiples have a black hole as one of the companions. "Our takeaway is that the fates of stars are incredibly impacted by their companion - or companions - in life. This event gives us an exciting window into how dramatically black holes can impact the deaths of massive stars," Gagliano said. Solve the daily Crossword
USA Today
4 days ago
- Science
- USA Today
A peculiar supernova prompts new theories about the cosmos
Scientists think a gigantic dying star tried to swallow a black hole. It didn't end well for the star, a new study says. A new discovery about what happens when a supernova – an exploding star – and a black hole collide could change the way scientists understand the lives and deaths of stars. The finding was the first time astrophysicists have observed a giant star exploding as the result, they believe, of its interaction with a dense black hole. The supernova was triggered by the intense gravitational stress of trying to "swallow" the black hole up, the study's authors say. The phenomenon may happen more than scientists realize, and new tools to observe supernova explosions could reveal other instances of black holes sparking supernovas, according to the lead study author. "If that is much more common, then it would transform the way we think about how stars explode," said Alex Gagliano, lead author of the study and fellow at the National Science Foundation Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions. One of the coolest parts of the discovery is that it was made possible by the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, Gagliano said. AI helped flag a star behaving unusually early on, which allowed the team to closely monitor as a surprising event unfolded. The study, published in the Astrophysical Journal, was conducted by a team led by the Center for Astrophysics, a collaboration between Harvard and the Smithsonian, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was part of the Young Supernova Experiment, which hopes to discover thousands of new cosmic explosions. What is a supernova? A black hole? A supernova is the spectacular explosion of a gigantic dying star. Stars – giant balls of gas – all have a life cycle, which can range from millions to trillions of years, according to NASA. When a huge star, several times the mass of the Sun, runs out of its nuclear fuel at its center, gravity's force takes over and it suddenly collapses, creating shock waves that cause the outer part of the star to explode into a supernova. A supernova typically leaves behind a very dense core. The very largest supernovas leave behind black holes, infamous for their great mystery. Black holes are points in the universe where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can get out, NASA says. Their gravity is so strong because matter is squeezed into a tiny space. Because no light can escape, black holes are invisible, but scientists can spot evidence of them when they suck in matter and gas, which glow as they near the black hole. Sometimes black holes are observed to have companion stars, stars that orbit around them. That's the interaction researchers zeroed in on in this new discovery. The mystery of black holes: What's at the center of a black hole? Scientists have a sobering answer. Why is this exploding star so special? The discovery of the supernova dubbed SN 2023zkd was so unusual because it put together pieces of a puzzle that had never been seen together before, Gagliano said. Usually, a supernova explosion gets brighter over a period of a week or two before reaching its peak and then gets dimmer, he said. At first, SN 2023zkd looked like a typical supernova explosion, just a sudden peak of brightness. But it dimmed at an unusually slow rate afterward, causing an AI program to flag it for further study. Scientists watched its decline for months, and then came a very strange behavior: It began to brighten again in a second peak. To understand this, the researchers looked back at old archival data and discovered that before its first blast, the star had been slowly brightening for a period of about four years, an incredibly uncommon sight. All these factors combined pointed to one likely explanation. About 730 million light-years from Earth, SN 2023zkd had been a star locked in an orbital dance with a black hole, and as they gradually got closer to one another, the black hole pulled at the star's material, causing the gradually increasing glow, Gagliano said. At the moment of the explosion, the star and black hole became so close that the star couldn't survive anymore, he said. The extreme gravitational stress from the black hole caused the supernova explosion. The second peak of brightness happened when the explosion itself collided with a disc-like cloud of dust and gas leftover from the interaction between the star and the black hole. "It's been known for a long time that the majority of stars have companions that interact with them at some point during their lives... but we never really thought that this interaction played a leading role in driving the death of a star," Gagliano said. "That is something that is very new and exciting and I think will force us to revisit how we think about simulating the end of a star." How AI is helping astrophysicists make new discoveries The explosion was first discovered in July 2023, after the research team was alerted to unusually slow dimming of the glow of a supernova. The alert came from an AI program designed to scan the sky for all the supernovas and each morning report on any unusual activity. The alert allowed the researchers to continue to observe the supernova and see as it shockingly began to brighten again, indicating a second explosion. More: Black holes caught devouring massive stars in biggest explosion since Big Bang Were it not for the AI program, the initial explosion may have just looked observationally like many other supernovas and scientists would never have looked back to see its slow brightening and deduced that it was interacting with a black hole, Gagliano said. AI's role in sifting through mountains of data that human researchers can't and flagging anomalies is growing in several scientific fields, from medicine to astrophysics, Gagliano said. "One of the only reasons that we were able to make this discovery and understand how scientifically interesting it was was through the combination of researchers in machine learning and in astrophysics," he said.
Miami Herald
23-04-2025
- Health
- Miami Herald
Florida urged anti-abortion nonprofit to spend millions fighting Amendment 4, group says
Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration last year gave an extra $5 million to a network of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy clinics and asked it to run advertisements opposing a proposed abortion amendment, the group confirmed Wednesday. But the Florida Pregnancy Care Network's board chose not to run those types of ads, the network's executive director, Rita Gagliano, said in a statement Wednesday. Instead, the organization used the money to run more neutral television spots focused on its anti-abortion services and its hotline. The decision appeared to come at a cost. DeSantis proposed this year repealing the state statute that guarantees the Florida Pregnancy Care Network its contract with the state. The revelation of the state's request to the Florida Pregnancy Care Network comes as Republican lawmakers investigate the DeSantis administration's decision to divert $10 million from a Medicaid settlement to the Hope Florida Foundation, a state-created charity. The $10 million was then given to two nonprofit groups, which then gave millions to a political committee airing ads against last year's Amendment 3, which would have allowed recreational marijuana use. Some Republican lawmakers have questioned whether it was legal, and others have questioned whether it jeopardized the Hope Florida Foundation's status as a nonprofit. IRS rules limit how much money 501(c)(3) organizations, like the Hope Florida Foundation and Florida Pregnancy Care Network, can spend on political activity. The Department of Health, which annually gives millions of taxpayer dollars to the pregnancy network, has refused to answer questions over the last week about how much money the state gave the organization, or who in the agency asked the nonprofit to run anti-Amendment 4 ads. 'The Department of Health requested that the Network run public service announcements to raise awareness and connect more Floridians with available services for pregnant women,' it said in a statement Wednesday. Gagliano said in a statement that the Department of Health asked the nonprofit to use some of its marketing budget 'to warn about the potential dangers associated with Amendment 4.' Florida gives about $29 million a year to the Florida Pregnancy Care Network. State statute, created in 2018, requires the Department of Health to contract with the nonprofit to 'promote and support childbirth.' Clinics steer women away from abortion and offer pregnancy testing, ultrasounds and counseling. DeSantis, in his budget proposal released in February, suggested repealing that statute. He suggested keeping funding for crisis pregnancy services but opening the contract with the Department of Health to competing bidders. 'We know that the Governor is a staunch, pro-life advocate, and that is what our organization stands for and our mission each and every day,' Gagliano said in a statement. 'Knowing that, we can only assume that the line item was an error, because there's no way the Governor would oppose our shared mission.' Neither the House nor Senate has moved forward with DeSantis' idea to strip the pregnancy network of its guaranteed state contract. DeSantis put the force of his administration behind opposing both the abortion amendment and the recreational marijuana effort. The state aired public service announcements that directed listeners to a website opposing the abortion amendment and ran anti-marijuana public service announcements using opioid settlement money. State agencies did not respond to multiple inquiries last year about how much the state spent on the ads, and the Legislature has not decided to look into it. Republican state lawmakers are trying to ban the state from using taxpayer dollars to advocate for or against constitutional amendments, even if the messaging is 'limited to factual information.' The language comes nestled in a bill that could reshape Florida's ballot initiative process, which is how amendments 3 and 4 were put on the ballot. The proposals moving through the House and Senate to reform that process are narrower than DeSantis' suggestion, which would make the ballot initiative process virtually impossible by eliminating third-party petition collection.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Florida pushed anti-abortion nonprofit to run ads against Amendment 4
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration last year gave an extra $5 million to a network of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy clinics and asked it to run advertisements opposing a proposed abortion amendment, the group confirmed Wednesday. But the Florida Pregnancy Care Network's board chose not to run those types of ads, the network's executive director, Rita Gagliano, said in a statement Wednesday. Instead, the organization used the money to run more neutral television spots focused on its anti-abortion services and its hotline. The decision appeared to come at a cost. DeSantis proposed this year repealing the state statute that guarantees the Florida Pregnancy Care Network its contract with the state. The revelation of the state's request to the Florida Pregnancy Care Network comes as Republican lawmakers investigate the DeSantis administration's decision to divert $10 million from a Medicaid settlement to the Hope Florida Foundation, a state-created charity. The $10 million was then given to two nonprofit groups, which then gave millions to a political committee airing ads against last year's Amendment 3, which would have allowed recreational marijuana use. Some Republican lawmakers have questioned whether it was legal, and others have questioned whether it jeopardized the Hope Florida Foundation's status as a nonprofit. IRS rules limit how much money 501(c)(3) organizations, like the Hope Florida Foundation and Florida Pregnancy Care Network, can spend on political activity. The Department of Health, which annually gives millions of taxpayer dollars to the pregnancy network, has refused to answer questions over the last week about how much money the state gave the organization, or who in the agency asked the nonprofit to run anti-Amendment 4 ads. 'The Department of Health requested that the Network run public service announcements to raise awareness and connect more Floridians with available services for pregnant women,' it said in a statement Wednesday. Gagliano said in a statement that the Department of Health asked the nonprofit to use some of its marketing budget 'to warn about the potential dangers associated with Amendment 4.' Florida gives about $29 million a year to the Florida Pregnancy Care Network. State statute, created in 2018, requires the Department of Health to contract with the nonprofit to 'promote and support childbirth.' Clinics steer women away from abortion and offer pregnancy testing, ultrasounds and counseling. DeSantis, in his budget proposal released in February, suggested repealing that statute. He suggested keeping funding for crisis pregnancy services but opening the contract with the Department of Health to competing bidders. 'We know that the Governor is a staunch, pro-life advocate, and that is what our organization stands for and our mission each and every day,' Gagliano said in a statement. 'Knowing that, we can only assume that the line item was an error, because there's no way the Governor would oppose our shared mission.' Neither the House nor Senate has moved forward with DeSantis' idea to strip the pregnancy network of its guaranteed state contract. DeSantis put the force of his administration behind opposing both the abortion amendment and the recreational marijuana effort. The state aired public service announcements that directed listeners to a website opposing the abortion amendment and ran anti-marijuana public service announcements using opioid settlement money. State agencies did not respond to multiple inquiries last year about how much the state spent on the ads, and the Legislature has not decided to look into it. Republican state lawmakers are trying to ban the state from using taxpayer dollars to advocate for or against constitutional amendments, even if the messaging is 'limited to factual information.' The language comes nestled in a bill that could reshape Florida's ballot initiative process, which is how amendments 3 and 4 were put on the ballot. The proposals moving through the House and Senate to reform that process are narrower than DeSantis' suggestion, which would make the ballot initiative process virtually impossible by eliminating third-party petition collection.
