SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A stripped helium star solves the massive black hole mystery:
The putative black hole was detected indirectly from the motion of a bright companion star, orbiting an invisible compact object over a period of about 80 days. From new observations, a Belgian team showed that the original measurements were misinterpreted and that the mass of the black hole is, in fact, very uncertain. The most important question, namely how the observed binary system was created, remains unanswered. A crucial aspect is the mass of the visible companion, the hot star LS V+22 25. The more massive this star is, the more massive the black hole has to be to induce the observed motion of the bright star. The latter was considered to be a normal star, eight times more massive than the Sun.
A team of astronomers from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and the University of Potsdam had a closer look at the archival spectrum of LS V+22 25, taken by the Keck telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. In particular, they were interested in studying the abundances of the chemical elements on the stellar surface. Interestingly, they detected deviations in the abundances of helium, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen compared to the standard composition of a young massive star. The observed pattern on the surface showed ashes resulting from the nuclear fusion of hydrogen, a process that only happens deep in the core of young stars and would not be expected to be detected at its surface.
[...] The authors concluded that LS V+22 25 must have interacted with its compact companion in the past. During this episode of mass-transfer, the outer layers of the star were removed and now the stripped helium core is visible, enriched with the ashes from the burning of hydrogen.
Journal Reference:
A. Irrgang, S. Geier, S. Kreuzer, I. Pelisoli, U. Heber. A stripped helium star in the potential black hole binary LB-1. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2020; 633: L5 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201937343
(Score: 2, Informative) by Jay on Tuesday January 14 2020, @04:00PM
It wasn't hideously wrong. It was pretty reasonable given that what they were actually looking at has only been seen a couple of times out of millions of observations in astronomy.
And their initial paper wasn't "we totally just exploded science!!!!" like most of the media ran for headlines. Their abstract concluded:
So the initial science was, "WTF is this?", and now the second round is saying, "Not what you thought, but something super rare and exciting!".
The initial paper provided all data and calculations too, to help people figure this out. If you read this article, they explain why the first group was a bit mystified:
So the first round of science found something was wacky. They couldn't figure out what was going on so they published all their data and methods along with a "WTF?" statement. Then other researchers found it intriguing and took a deeper dive, and found it was something cool and unexpected.
That's how science is supposed to work.