Astronomers have discovered a spaghettified star for the first time. The discovery is evidence of a distant star that has wrapped around a supermassive black hole. The process is also called “spaghettification.”
Astronomers were witnessing bursts of electromagnetic radiation emanating from black holes for the past some time. They believed that the bursts are from stars that are being torn apart by the black hole. However, they were never able to observe the shape of these stars, until now.
Spaghettified star found
In a new study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a team of international scientists was able to observe an actual “spaghettified star.”
As stars inch closer to the final stages of their life, their temperatures either drop-down or they explode in a supernova, obliterating everything around them. However, the stars closer to the center of their galaxy face the danger of being torn into long strips.
That happens due to the galaxy’s central black hole. Astronomers have observed massive black holes of most galaxies tugging at one side of the star more than the other end, a process “tidal disruption event.”
Huge bursts of radiations
The spaghetti-like strands of the star get slumped up by the black hole, causing bursts of radiation. While the evidence is convincing, astronomers were only able to see the outlines of the strands.
Recently, scientists from the Ohio State University (OSU) found Earth’s closest black hole. The black hole is just 1,500 light-years away, which is considered a close distance in astronomical measurements. The black hole has been named “The Unicorn” because it is located in the Monoceros constellation and also because it is one-of-a-kind.
NASA recently visualized how two black holes interact with each other. Black holes have extremely powerful gravitational pulls, so strong that they even swallow light around them. But this doesn’t make them invisible. They have a structure called an accretion disk around them, which is made up of dust and gas clouds. NASA’s visualization shows how their gravity warps the accretion disk of the other.
