In this artist’s impression, matter is stripped from a white dwarf orbiting within the innermost accretion disk surrounding 1ES 1927’s supermassive black hole. Astronomers developed this scenario to explain the evolution of rapid X-ray oscillations detected by ESA’s XMM-Newton satellite. The oscillations could suggest that a massive object, like a compact star, is embedded in the accretion disk, and is rapidly orbiting the black hole on its way to being swallowed.
ESA’s LISA mission, due to launch in the next decade, should be able to confirm the presence of an orbiting white dwarf by detecting the gravitational waves it produces.
[Image description: In the lower half of the image, a colourful disk, mostly orange and white, swirls around a black ellipse that looks like a hole. Within the disk, a small white ball appears to whizz around leaving a pinkish trail; above the disk and the black hole, an electric-blue jet of wispy material is rising and fills the top part of the image]
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