@curiositycosmos: Black Hole Eating a Star! Using telescopes from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and other global institutions, astronomers have observed a rare blast of light from a star torn apart by a supermassive black hole. This tidal disruption event, the closest recorded at just over 215 million light-years away, was studied in exceptional detail and is documented in today's issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. This Animation shows you how this might look! Matt Nicholl, a lecturer at the University of Birmingham, UK, and lead author of the study, explains that in a tidal disruption event, a star undergoes spaghettification as it is drawn into a black hole. These events, although rare, provide critical insights into the dynamics of black holes. The team used ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and New Technology Telescope (NTT) to closely observe the recent flare near a supermassive black hole. Thomas Wevers, an ESO Fellow, states that a star that strays too close to a supermassive black hole is shredded into streams of material. This process releases a bright flare of energy, detectable by astronomers. Previously, these flares were difficult to study due to obscuring dust and debris. Samantha Oates of the University of Birmingham notes that as the black hole consumes the star, it launches a blast of material outward, obscuring our view. The recent study of the event AT2019qiz, identified shortly after the star was torn apart, allowed researchers to observe the formation of this curtain of debris and track it in real-time. Over six months, the team monitored AT2019qiz in the constellation of Eridanus as the flare grew and then faded. Using a suite of telescopes, including ESO's VLT and NTT equipped with X-shooter and EFOSC2 instruments, they conducted extensive ultraviolet, optical, X-ray, and radio observations. These revealed a direct link between the expelled material and the emitted flare, showing the star had a mass similar to our Sun and lost about half to the black hole. Credit:ESO https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2018/ #space #viral #foryou #blackhole #universe #star #education #Science #telescope #eso #nasa

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Sunday 14 April 2024 18:20:23 GMT