Congratulations to our final year PhD student, Thomas Killestein who is an author on a paper titled 'The Birth of a Relativistic Jet Following the Disruption of a Star by a Cosmological Black HoleLink opens in a new window' which has been published in Nature Astronomy.

Thomas tells us "The object itself is a black hole feeding on a star, and at peak was around 20 trillion times more luminous than that of our Sun, in an extreme example of astrophysics. the black hole is shredding a star similar to our own Sun, which forms a disc of material around the black hole, before ejecting material in jets at almost the speed of light, in one of the most energetic events ever seen."

The research has been undertaken by a global team, who conducted analysis of this newly discovered object across the electromagnetic spectrum. Thomas' focus was helping with ground-based infrared observations, remotely observing from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) New Technology Telescope (NTT) as part of the ePESSTO+ collaboration.

"While there are many theories as to what powers these energetic events, the vast energies of the jets seen in this system don't fit neatly into our understanding of the phenomena, so the puzzle continues. It's been amazing to be part of the research into this example of extreme astrophysics."