sci-universe:
What happens when a star gets too close to a black hole?
Recent observations by a trio of orbiting X-ray telescopes of an event dubbed
ASASSN-14li,
in a distant galactic center,
gives one star’s terrifying story.
When a star wanders too close to a black hole, intense tidal forces rip
the star apart. In these events, called “tidal disruptions,” some of the
stellar debris is flung outward at high speed while the rest falls
toward the black hole. This causes a distinct X-ray flare that can last
for a few years.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Swift Gamma-ray Burst
Explorer, and ESA/NASA’s XMM-Newton collected different pieces of this
astronomical puzzle in ASASSN-14li. The event occurred near a
supermassive black hole estimated to weigh a few million times the mass
of the sun in the center of a galaxy that lies about 290
million light-years away. read more here
Illustration Credit:
NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center,
CI Lab
