10-12-2020, 10:27 PM
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style...88845.html
Scientists have watched a rare blast of light from a star as it was eaten by a black hole.
The unusual “tidal disruption event” was visible in telescopes across the world. It appeared as a bright flare of energy, the closest of its kind ever recorded, at just 215 million light-years away.
Such events happen when a star gets too near to a black hole, and is pulled in by its extreme gravity.
As the star is sucked in, it undergoes a process called “spaghettification”, where the star is shredded into thin strips, some of which falls into the black hole.
When it does, a flare of energy is unleashed that flies out into the universe, enabling the process to be spotted by distant astronomers.
I have to admit, it's a bit of a shame we don't get to see any pictures of the event itself (only an artist's impression). However, I expect it would just show up as a brief speck of light that would fade out soon enough - so, it probably wouldn't look very spectacular from Earth anyway .
Still, it's nice that they got this. Apparently, it's rather rare: even when they do detect something like this, the view is often obstructed by the matter ejected from the dying star, so it's fortunate that that didn't happen on this occasion .
Scientists have watched a rare blast of light from a star as it was eaten by a black hole.
The unusual “tidal disruption event” was visible in telescopes across the world. It appeared as a bright flare of energy, the closest of its kind ever recorded, at just 215 million light-years away.
Such events happen when a star gets too near to a black hole, and is pulled in by its extreme gravity.
As the star is sucked in, it undergoes a process called “spaghettification”, where the star is shredded into thin strips, some of which falls into the black hole.
When it does, a flare of energy is unleashed that flies out into the universe, enabling the process to be spotted by distant astronomers.
I have to admit, it's a bit of a shame we don't get to see any pictures of the event itself (only an artist's impression). However, I expect it would just show up as a brief speck of light that would fade out soon enough - so, it probably wouldn't look very spectacular from Earth anyway .
Still, it's nice that they got this. Apparently, it's rather rare: even when they do detect something like this, the view is often obstructed by the matter ejected from the dying star, so it's fortunate that that didn't happen on this occasion .
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