Astronomers See First Hint of the Silhouette of a Spaghettified Star
April 26th 2021, 3:52 pm
Stars living in the inner region of their galaxy are in danger of getting torn into slim filaments by the supermassive black hole that lurks in the center of most galaxies
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For decades astronomers have been spotting bursts of electromagnetic radiation coming from black holes.
They assumed those are the result of stars being torn apart, but they have never seen the silhouette of the actual material ligaments.
Now a group of astronomers, including lead author Giacomo Cannizzaro and Peter Jonker from SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research/Radboud University, has for the first time observed spectral absorption lines caused by strands of a spaghettified star.
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Archyde
April 25, 2021 by archyde
A research team from Ohio State University announced that they have observed a black hole located at a distance of 1500 light years from planet Earth, and that makes it, according to an official statement issued by the university on April 21, the closest black hole to Earth discovered so far, and it was called “unicorn.”
Black holes are the final stage in the life of giant stars, as the star’s material collapses in on itself with a massive explosion that leaves in the center a dark ball with an enormous ability to attract, to the point that the light itself cannot escape from its hands, according to the Al-Jazeera website.
When it comes to black holes, does size really matter? Would you be afraid if astronomers discovered one of the tiniest black holes ever? Would you change your mind if they told you it was also the closest black hole to the Earth ever found? How close? Ah, all of sudden, size DOES matter!
Tharindu Jayasinghe is a doctoral student in astronomy at The Ohio State University and part of a team of researchers looking for tiny black holes – a new class of black holes discovered in 2019 at The Ohio State University. They were scanning data on a red giant star in the constellation Monoceros – so named because it resembles the mythical steed – when they noticed something was causing the light from the red giant to periodically change in intensity and appearance. The changes were so drastic that they signaled the orbiting object was massive enough to change its shape – a phenomenon called tidal distortion – but not large enough to block it completely from view. Knowing what they kno