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| Artist's illustration of Black hole releasing High Energy Jets |
Scientists have seen the
vast blast thrown out by a black hole eating a star for the first ever time. Researchers
have finally watched the formation and expansion of the fast-moving jet of
material that is thrown out when a supermassive black hole's gravity grabs a
star and tears it apart.
Scientists watched the
dramatic event using highly specialised telescopes, which are trained on a pair
of colliding galaxies called Arp 299, nearly 150 million light-years from
Earth. At the centre of one of those galaxies, a star twice the size of the Sun
came too close to a black hole that is more than 20 million times big as our
Sun – and was shredded apart, throwing a blast across the universe.
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| Artist's illustration of Black hole releasing High Energy Jets |
It was that blast that
scientists were able to see happen for the first time ever. Theorists have long
thought the events were common – speculating that material torn from the star
makes a rotating disk around the black hole, emitting intense X-rays and
visible light, and also pushes jets of material outward from the poles of the
disk at nearly the speed of light – but have been yet to see it actually
happen.
"Never before have we
been able to directly observe the formation and evolution of a jet from one of
these events," said Miguel Perez-Torres, of the Astrophysical Institute of
Andalusia in Granada, Spain.
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| Artist's illustration of Black hole releasing High Energy Jets |
Most galaxies have
supermassive black holes, which can pull matter into them and form a huge disc
around their outsides as they do. But for the most part, those black holes stay
quiet, not devouring anything. That means that the violent events that
scientists have finally seen can be a unparalleled insight into what actually
happens around a black hole.
"Much of the time,
however, supermassive black holes are not actively devouring anything, so they
are in a quiet state," Perez-Torres said. "Tidal disruption events
can provide us with a unique opportunity to advance our understanding of the
formation.”
“It can also help understand
evolution of jets in the vicinities of these powerful objects," he added.
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| Artist's illustration of Black hole releasing High Energy Jets |
"Because of the dust
that absorbed any visible light, this particular tidal disruption event may be
just the tip of the iceberg of what until now has been a hidden
population," Mattila said. "By looking for these events with infrared
and radio telescopes, we may be able to discover many more, and learn from
them," he said.
Researchers had initially
turned their sights towards the doomed star as part of a search for supernova
explosions in such colliding pairs of galaxies. They had initially thought that
they were seeing was one such a supernova explosion – but it kept expanding,
confirming that it was in fact a jet being spewed out as the star was torn
apart.
Source
It is tearing appart indeed, but no proof of eating the star jet.
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