Black holes are a bit like bottlegrass plants, they wait patiently for their prey. This can go on for millions of years until the moment when an object falls into the gravitational field comes. It could also be an entangled star that is too close to the cosmic glutton. The gravitational field of a black hole is so strong that it tears apart the star and begins to slowly absorb it. But among countless stars, it is extremely difficult to find such a phenomenon, but recently astronomers using the Hubble telescope have observed a rare phenomenon of chaos "eating" stars.
Huge flashes of light were detected at a distance of about 300 million light-years from Earth. The Hubble telescope cannot see the visible spectrum, but takes advantage of its strong sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation. With the resulting spectra, researchers were able to see carbon, hydrogen, and many other elements at the site of the black hole "feast".
This time, scientists have observed the process of star-to-nothing being wiped out for longer than usual. They were able to detect a mutilated object that was in the initial stages of destruction. Due to its strong gravitational pull, the black hole tears the star apart, and its remnant forms a doughnut shape (or scientifically a ring). And then slowly (from the point of view of the general) began to absorb him.
According to astronomers, this phenomenon, known as tidal disruption, occurs only a few times every 100,000 years in any galaxy with supermassive quiescent black holes. Like our Milky Way, for example. Hubble's discovery is unique in its own way, allowing scientists to better understand the nature of black holes.
When a star flies past a black hole, the gravitational pull of the moment shatters its prey into pieces, accompanied by intense radiation. After turning the star into a doughnut (the size of our solar system), the star begins to revolve around the "eater" and becomes smaller and smaller. This phenomenon is known as an accretion disc.
Due to the gravitational difference between the center and edge portions of the black hole, it stretches the remnants of the stars around the event horizon. In the end, all that remained of the celestial body was a "spaghetti". During the "feast", stellar winds are generated, which reach a speed of 3% of the speed of light – more than 30 million kilometers per hour. In the entire history of studying black holes, scientists have been able to notice the fact of about 100 tidal disruptions using different telescopes.
Astronomers have noticed that during tidal disruption, most of the star's volume dissolves into space. Only about one percent of the stellar material ends up in the endless stomach of the black hole.
It turns out that black holes can not only destroy everything around them, but also reduce cosmic celestial bodies to nothing. They can also "give birth" to stars. This phenomenon is well known. But early last year, for the first time in the history of the same Hubble telescope, it was able to capture the process up close.
This happens at the center of our neighboring dwarf galaxy, about 30 million light-years away. Spectroscopy made it possible for the newborn star to be connected to the black hole by an air-dust "umbilical cord" about 500 light-years long.
As astronomers say, a black hole ejects a powerful jet of ions at a speed of 1.5 million kilometers per hour. This is the same "umbilical cord". Nova does not appear at the top of the air column, but almost in the middle. It is in this place where the gas cloud is formed that the best conditions are created for the "birth" of celestial bodies.