Interactions between supernovae and black holes must be exceedingly rare. But that's the only explanation for a very strange explosion found with the Zwicky Transient Facility. In July 2023, the ZTF spotted strange light signals about 730 million light-years from Earth, and AI helped astronomers unravel what they were seeing.
The ZTF scans the skies for transient objects that change in brightness. It's an automated survey that sends out alerts when it detects something significant. The 2023 detection was made with a new artificial intelligence algorithm, and when it was detected, the ZTF alerted astronomers. Follow-up observations began quickly, which is critical because ongoing changes over time help astrophysicists understand what they're seeing.
