???

I am an amen.

Shhhhhhh

MMMmm MMMMMMMMMmmm

Thank you.

So we found an object which had burst out into the X-ray world in 1988, and we wanted to wait until it quieted down at X-ray energies, because along with the X-ray outburst, you get an outburst of optical light, radio light, everything. And so what happens is for quite a while, the matter which is being dumped into the black hole glows so much at all wavelengths that it completely dominates the light from the star, which you might find to be oscillating back and forth. So you have to wait for a while until this thing fades, until the black hole stops stealing material from the companion star. So we waited.

We want to find as direct evidence as we can that a massive compact object, a dark star, is pulling on a companion star. So the way to do that is to measure the motion of the companion star. Since you can never directly take a photograph of a black hole, it just appears black, the best you can really do is measure its influence on material around it. We can then look for minute shifts in the color of the light coming from the star. And if these shifts are found and they go back and forth periodically, then that's an indication that something is tugging on the star.

So we waited.