The alarm is raised/ An unusual phenomenon occurs, the "debris" of dying stars can emit...

According to a study that several scientists presented at the 242nd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, "Debris bags" that form when massive stars die can emit gravitational waves.

The research is led by Ore Gottlieb, a fellow at Northwestern University's Center for Exploration and Interdisciplinary Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). Among the authors of the study is the director of CIERA, Vicky Kalogera.

So far astrophysicists have only detected gravitational waves from binary systems, black hole mergers or two neutron stars. Although astrophysicists should theoretically be able to detect gravitational waves from a single, non-binary source, they still don't understand where these signals come from.

Now Northwestern University researchers suggest turning their attention to a new and completely unexplored place: the bags of debris and energy that surround dying massive stars.

The researchers used state-of-the-art simulations to model the collapse of a massive star. When these stars turn into black holes, they can create powerful streams of particles that travel at the speed of light. The simulations modeled this process from the moment the star is destroyed until the particles escape.

"When I calculated the gravitational waves from the black hole region, I found another source that interrupted my calculations. I tried to ignore it but found it impossible to ignore it. Then I realized that the "bag" was an interesting source of gravitational waves", says Ore Gottlieb. In fact, as noted in the study, the LIGO Gravitational Wave Observatory with its laser interferometer may be able to detect these gravitational waves.

Gottlieb points out that “our study is a call to the community to consider the bags as a source of gravitational waves. By studying them, we can learn more about what happens inside stars, the properties of particles and their effect on stellar explosions.