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UC Santa Cruz researchers observed a star devoured by a black hole

one of the most strong stuff In the most attractive and mysterious space.

An international team led by researchers from University of California, Santa CruzThe Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen and Washington State University watched a black hole gobble a lone star, “tearing it apart,” causing a distinctive bright flare, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Nov. 10 . Press release he said.

The monstrous party, or “tidal disruption event,” was captured in a dwarf galaxy 850 million light-years away from Experiment of a young supernova (YSE), an investigation that follows cosmic explosions and “astrophysical transients”: extreme and devastating events in the dark corners of space.

In the press release, university staff put it more simply, explaining that “a hidden and undetected intermediate-mass black hole in a dwarf galaxy revealed itself to astronomers when it passed in front of an unfortunate star that had strayed too far “. Black holes are so hard to detect that telescopes that capture X-rays or light can’t even pick them up. According to NASA. but, The photos were first taken in 2019 It shows that they appear to be dark objects surrounded by hot, luminous matter.

“We’re in what I call the era of celestial cinema,” said Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, a UC Santa Cruz professor who studies “the violent universe,” in a call to SFGATE. Although YSE has helped capture hundreds, if not thousands, of supernovae, he said, finding a medium-sized black hole digesting a star was a pleasant surprise.

“We haven’t really found many of these low-mass black holes, these elusive medium-mass black holes,” he said.

“It was something we didn’t expect,” laughed Ramirez Ruiz.

The embodiment of an unhappy star who stumbles into a black hole.

University of California Santa Cruz / Observatory LLC

He added that such “exciting and extraordinary” disruptive events are rare. Researchers would have to study 100,000 galaxies to see just one galaxy a year. Finding them, however, is important because it could shed light on some of astronomy’s most pressing questions, namely how supermassive black holes form at the centers of large galaxies, Ramirez-Ruiz said. Even our Milky Way has one of these giant galaxies at its heart, according to NASA.

In fact, 2022 has been a hellish year for black holes.

In June, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley collected possible evidence of a ghost-like “floating” black hole Drift in space. Deemed “one of the most bizarre phenomena in astrophysics,” these objects have rightfully captured the hearts of researchers across California.

Ramirez Ruiz says YSE will continue to monitor galaxies for more cosmic events.

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