Overview

• A paper by Gagliano et al. published in the Astrophysical Journal uses AI-flagged alerts and archival data to pinpoint a black hole–star interaction as the cause of SN 2023zkd.
• SN 2023zkd broke from the norm by showing a double-peaked light curve, with an initial flare and a second rise about 240 days later.
• Archival observations reveal more than four years of gradual brightening before the July 2023 discovery, suggesting prolonged mass loss and complex circumstellar structures.
• The authors outline two viable mechanisms: a star engulfing a stellar-mass black hole whose gravity triggered collapse, or tidal disruption and debris accretion by the black hole.
• Researchers caution that the model-dependent interpretation hinges on further detections of similar events and highlight the growing importance of AI pipelines like LAISS alongside next-generation surveys.