NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured the moment a supermassive black hole devours a star. It’s truly a space show. About 300 million light-years from Earth, the ill-fated star got close enough to the black hole to fall victim to its hungry gravitational pull. The rarely observed process is called a tidal disruption event (TDE), and scientists can see it thanks to the large amount of radiation emitted when a star is devoured.
This happens in the form of ultraviolet light, forming a giant flaring circle around the black hole. Astronomers have captured about 100 TDEs using telescopes, including the Hubble telescope. Thanks to its strong UV sensitivity, this is the first time tidal disruption has been observed in UV light rather than X-rays, so scientists hope it will help them learn more about this terrifying spectacle. increase.
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