![]() ![]() ![]() Super massive black holes, the largest of black holes, are believed to exist at the centre of most massive galaxies. ![]() This study suggests this prediction was correct, the scientists said. "It's the first time we see everything from the stellar destruction followed by the launch of a conical outflow, also called a jet, and we watched it unfold over several months," Mr van Velzen said.īlack holes are areas of space so dense that irresistible gravitational force stops the escape of matter, gas and even light, rendering them invisible and creating the effect of a void in the fabric of space.Īstrophysicists had predicted that when a black hole is force-fed a large amount of gas, in this case a whole star, then a fast-moving jet of plasma - elementary particles in a magnetic field - can escape from near the black hole rim. The finding tracks the star - about the size of our Sun - as it shifts from its customary path, slips into the gravitational pull of a super massive black hole and is sucked in, said Sjoert van Velzen, a Hubble fellow at the Johns Hopkins University in US. Choi on Twitter Visit for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter and on Facebook.Scientists have for the first time witnessed a black hole swallowing a star in a galaxy 300 million light years away and ejecting a flare of matter moving at nearly the speed of light. 25 issue of the journal Nature.įollow contributor Charles Q. The scientists detailed their findings in two papers in the Aug. "There are a lot more surprises in space for us to discover, especially as we continue to make huge strides in the technical capabilities of our instruments," Zauderer told. Knowing how often these occur will help scientists figure out just how many galaxies harbor supermassive black holes, what the properties of these monsters are, the density of stars in galactic cores, and how these jets form. "It's not surprising that such an event would cause jets, but it was just never discussed in past publications," Burrows said.įuture research could reveal more outbursts of this kind. This helps explain why the flare had X-rays 10,000 times brighter than predicted for a tidal disruption event: Basically, relativistic jets are focused bursts of energy. In the past, scientists had missed the fact that relativistic jets could form as black holes ripped apart stars. ![]() Images from Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical (white, purple) and X-Ray telescopes (yellow and red) were combined to make this view of Swift J1644+57. This suggested the flare came from a relativistic jet released after a black hole ripped apart a star, which scientists named Swift J1644+57.īased on the wavelengths of light emitted by the flare and the way it evolved over time, the scientists concluded that it originated from matter falling or accreting onto a black hole about 1 million times the mass of the sun, comparable to the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. "It was nothing like we expected for a gamma-ray burst," said Ashley Zauderer, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who co-authored a different study on the event.Īdditional observations by several radio telescopes suggested the flare occurred in the center of a galaxy, and that the source of this radiation was expanding at 99.5 percent the speed of light. To link the Swift event to the galaxy required observations at radio wavelengths, which showed that the galaxy's center contained a brightening radio source. ![]()
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