(ORDO NEWS) — Astronomers using the Hubble telescope tracked the last stages of the life of a star that was swallowed up by a black hole.
The processes that occur during this are known as “tidal disruption events.”
The dead star was 300 million light-years from Earth, at the core of the galaxy ESO 583-G004.
But Hubble, using ultraviolet sensors, was able to capture the star’s glow. The analysis showed that elements such as hydrogen and oxygen were present in the emissions.
Previously, scientists have made a series of observations of black holes destroying stars, but they were made in the X-ray range.
Meanwhile, there remains a lot of information that can only be obtained by studying the ultraviolet spectrum.
According to scientists, supermassive black holes very rarely swallow stars – such events occur several times in 100 thousand years. One such phenomenon was seen in March 2022.
Hubble’s observations showed that the star, captured by the hole’s gravity, turned into a bright and hot donut-shaped region of gas.
This area the size of the entire solar system rotated around the center. The scientists also detected a stellar wind from the black hole, estimated at 32 million kilometers per hour (3% of the speed of light).
Research like this helps to better understand what happens during tidal disruption events. Astronomers noted that changes in a star doomed to death occur very quickly – in just a few days or months.
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