A black hole swallowed up a star: for the first time in history it was seen from Earth

Scientists around the world observed a rare flash of light from a star as it was swallowed up by a black hole. This phenomenon could be seen in telescopes around the world. It was a bright burst of energy, the closest ever recorded - just 215 million light-years away. Writes about this Independent.

Photo: Shutterstock

Such events happen when a star gets too close to a black hole and is pulled in by its extreme gravity.

During absorption, a star undergoes a process called "spaghettification," in which the star is cut into thin stripes, some of which fall into the black hole.

At the same time, a lot of energy is released, a flash occurs, which allows astronomers to detect this process.

“The idea of ​​a black hole sucking up a nearby star sounds like science fiction,” said Dr Matt Nicoll, lecturer and Royal Astronomical Society researcher at the University of Birmingham. “And now we have been able to study in detail what happens when such a monster eats a star.”

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Scientists were able to observe the process through telescopes around the world for six months - first the star became brighter, and then faded.

Observing such a takeover is usually not possible. Cosmic dust and debris hide this process from the eyes of scientists, and this happens quite rarely.

“When a black hole devours a star, it can release a massive burst of material outwards that obscures our view,” said Samantha Oates from the University of Birmingham. “This happens because the energy released when stellar material is consumed by a black hole pushes stellar debris out.”

Astronomers were able to see this absorption, called AT2019qiz, in more detail than ever before because it was discovered shortly after the star was blown to shreds.

“Several satellites detected the black hole very quickly after it engulfed the star,” says Thomas Wevers, a research fellow at ESO in Santiago. “We immediately pointed several ground-based and space-based telescopes in that direction to see how the light was generated.”

This allowed them to see and better understand both the nature of the outbreak and the origin of the debris that usually surrounds it.

For the first time in history, astronomers have been able to observe ultraviolet, optical, X-ray, and radio emissions from a black hole and see a direct connection between a star's material and the bright flare emitted when it is absorbed.

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"The observations showed that the star had about the same mass as our Sun, and that it lost about half that mass to a black hole that is more than a million times more massive," said Nicoll, who is also a researcher at the University of Edinburgh.

They were also able to see the debris cloud rise and block the absorption from observation.

“We could actually see the curtain of dust and debris rise as the black hole fires a powerful stream of stellar material at speeds of up to 10 km/s,” said Kate Alexander, a NASA scientist. “This unique 'look behind the curtain' provided the first opportunity pinpoint the origin of the material obscuring the view and track in real time how it envelops the black hole."

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