|
Black hole rips apart doomed star in 'rare' event
[PRESSTV] Scientists have captured a view of a colossal black hole violently ripping apart a doomed star, illustrating an extraordinary and chaotic cosmic event from beginning to end for the first time using NASA's planet-hunting telescope.The US space agency's orbiting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as TESS, revealed the detailed timeline of a star 375 million light-years away warping and spiraling into the unrelenting gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole, researchers said. The star, roughly the same size as our sun, was eventually sucked into oblivion in a rare cosmic occurrence that astronomers call a tidal disruption event, they added. Speaking to Rooters, NASA scientist Knicole Colon said the event involving a black hole violently ripping apart a doomed start was "rare." Astronomers used an international network of telescopes to detect the phenomenon before turning to TESS, whose permanent viewing zones designed to hunt distant planets caught the beginning of the violent event, proving effective its unique method of surveying the cosmos. Such phenomena happen when a star ventures too close to a supermassive black hole, objects that reside at the center of most large galaxies, including our Milky Way. The black hole's tremendous gravitational forces tear the star to shreds, with some of its material tossed into space and the rest plunging into the black hole, forming a disk of hot, bright gas as it is swallowed. Observing the oscillation of light as the black hole gobbles the star and spews stellar material in an outward spiral could help astronomers understand the black hole's behavior, a scientific mystery since physicist Albert Einstein's work more than a century ago examined gravity's influence on light in motion. Related: Black hole: 2019-09-23 A supernova turned into a black hole as Hubble was watching it! Black hole: 2019-04-03 We're probably about to see the first-ever photograph of a black hole Black hole: 2019-02-15 From the Victory Girl's Bookshelf: The Diversity Delusion Related: NASA: 2019-09-27 Second stage of StarShip Stacked! NASA: 2019-09-24 Pork on steroids. Sen Shelby and Texas Senators flex ... NASA: 2019-09-22 A good backgrounder on the impending Musk speech on Starship at Boca Chica TX Posted by: Fred 2019-09-29 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=551452 |