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Actually, the big mystery here arises from the observation that the decline in the Supernova optical and radio luminosity, has not been accompanied by a decline in the X-Ray band emissions. The X-Ray emissions have been steady over a period of 12 years (since 1995) which was not expected from a Supernova of this size.
The current Supernova-turning-into-a-magnetar model predicts a decline in X-Rays over a similar period.
They've matched up the observed decline of X-Rays with a model which uses accreting material surrounding a black hole.
They still aren't entirely convinced as they're recommending deeper Chandra or XMM-Newton observations. They'll be looking for short term variations in the X-ray light curve, which could be seen as evidence for ongoing accretion (& hence more weight to the 'Black Hole' theory).
I'm not so sure this announcement was as exciting as we were hoping for.
A definitive "We've finally seen a Black Hole" would've been a much cooler announcement .. oh well … that's astronomy, huh ?
Cheers
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