What happens when a star revolves very close to a very large black hole? The clear story is that it is sucked in, will never be seen again.
Some of its material gets very hot along the way and emits large amounts of radiation – usually X-rays. This is not a misinterpretation, just incomplete.
A Strange Radio Signal Has Been Detected From Deep Space Beating Like a Heart
Astronomers Watched a Black Hole Shred a Star
There is much more to this story, thanks to a team of astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley.
They used a special spectrograph at the Luck Observatory to study the occurrence of maritime disturbances. There, a star encountered a black hole. What they found was amazing.
Watching a Doomed Star Swirl Away
Supermassive black holes are found in galaxies throughout the universe. Strange things happen when a star orbits someone. Gravity rips the star apart and disperses some of its contents in a process called ‘spaghettiization’.
A recent study of maritime disturbances shows that there are other things as well. For example, strong winds blowing out of the event send some of the material of the ruined star into space. It’s all part of his weirdness.
“What a supermassive black hole can do is to tear a star to pieces with its tremendous oceanic forces,” said Weinben Lowe, an assistant professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley.
“These stellar marine disturbances are one of the few ways astronomers can detect the presence of large-scale black holes in the centers of galaxies and measure their properties. The complex process following marine disturbances. “
That is why to study a real star because it fulfills its torment. The Berkeley Group knocked out the one closest to the black hole in the “AT2019qiz” event.
The catastrophe occurred in a spiral galaxy at the Eridanus Bridge, about 215 million light-years from Earth. As soon as the star entered the action disk, it was cut.
Then something surprisingly unexpected happened. And, it took a lot of hard work to see that.
A Polarized View of the Action
Since the disruption was visible in optical light, the team members decided to study it in polarized light to get a better idea of what was happening.
Waves of polarized light travel in the same plane, and this reduces the intensity of light. (This is the same principle that polarized sunglasses use to reduce glare.
In this case, using polarized light allowed the team to see the result of the star fragmentation. Usually, they do not see it. Based on observations of other similar incidents, they did not even see the expected amount of X-rays. So, what was happening?
For AT2019qiz, spectropolarimetry observations show that most of the star’s material never made it into the black hole-hungry Mao. Some were buried in space.
However, strong winds from the black hole also created spherical symmetrical high-speed clouds of surviving stellar material. The team pulled it out at a speed of about 10,000 kilometers per second. This cloud definitely provided some surprises.
“This is the first time anyone has guessed the shape of a gas cloud around a fast-spreading star,” said Alex Filpenko, a professor at UC Berkeley’s astronomy and a member of the research team.
A Shredded Star Supplies Clues to Similar Events
This unique look at the disruption of the star explains why astronomers have not seen large-scale high-energy X-rays from this and similar marine disruptions. Strong winds created the cloud and the cloud is blocking most of the energy radiation.
“People are seeing other evidence of air leaks from these incidents,” said Koshore Patra, a graduate student and lead author of the study.
“I think this study of polarization certainly reinforces this evidence, in the sense that you wouldn’t find spherical geometry without plenty of air. The interesting fact here is that a significant portion of the material in a star It’s spinning. It doesn’t fall into the black hole on the inside – it’s blown out of the black hole. ”
what’s next?
The use of polarized light provides an important tool for studying what happens when other stars encounter massive black holes.
It also gives astronomers access to what happens in a black hole’s action disk. This is not an easy task. “These disruptions are so far away that you can’t really solve them, so you can’t study the geometry of the event or the structure of these explosions,” Filipenko pointed out.
“Be that as it may, the investigation of energized light really assists us with getting some data about the dispersion of issue in this blast or, for this situation, how the gas around this dark opening – and perhaps the activity circle – is shaped. ۔ “
Energized light from these sorts of splendid “Emissions” is an important device for planning these occasions. Ultimately, such observations can help create a “tomographic” picture of a maritime disturbance as it unfolds – even in the galaxy itself, far away.
