Technological advances have been constantly evolving in recent years, and they concern all fields, including astronomy. And on this subject, artificial intelligence managed to observe, for the first time, a star that explodes during its encounter with a black hole. 

Thus, if the event occurred during the month of July 2023, it was the subject of a study published on August 13 in The Astrophysical Journal. Therefore, at this moment, the astronomical survey of the Zwicky Transient Facility from the Palomar Observatory in California, which has an AI algorithm capable of identifying all anomalies in space, detected an event located 730 million light-years away named SN 2023zkd. 

Going into details, it was a supernova that has exploded, causing an immense flash in the blackness of space. However, several months after this event, the star that was supposed to be dead began to shine again. And that’s not all, because after various analyses of this phenomenon, researchers estimated that the brightness of this star had changed considerably about four years before its explosion.

Therefore, thanks to this discovery made by artificial intelligence, scientists have highlighted two theories involving a black hole to explain this phenomenon. Thus, it is possible that the star was trapped in the orbit of this black hole which tore off gigantic quantities of gas from it. Which would explain the increase in its brightness before its explosion. Then, due to the high density of the black hole, the matter started to shine more and more until the star exploded. 

As for the second hypothesis, which is less likely according to the researchers, the black hole would have caused the death of the star before it became a supernova. And if today these two theories are still under study, it must be said that, in any case, this black hole played an important role in its tragic fate. 

Of course, this type of phenomenon was known, but only in theory. In other words, no observations of this kind had been made in the past. And it’s thanks to the use of artificial intelligence that this has happened, which is a major step forward, both for science and for this technology. 

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Alexis Stegmann – Tech Writer – 167 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2025

I’ve been working in the field of web writing for several years, and I’m passionate about keeping readers up to date with the latest news on astronomy, technology, the world of video games and other exciting subjects. In particular, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of websites, which has enabled me to cover a wide range of subjects. In my personal life, I’m passionate about a wide range of subjects, including astronomy, video games, history and science. I’m also drawn to psychology, which is a subject that deserves greater documentation and recognition.