(ESO/M. KORNMESSER)
(SANTIAGO, Chile) Scientists have observed stars dying before, but they don't usually get to see them sucked into a black hole in real time. A new study published online Monday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society detailed exactly that, according to CBS News.
The star's death was notable not just for the cause but the way it died through "spaghettification."
Scientists first caught wind of the star's death after they detected a blast of light, known as a tidal disruption event, at the Zwicky Transient Facility in San Diego County, California.
Nearly 5,500 miles away, scientists at the European Southern Observatory in Santiago, Chile, were able to point their telescopes at the light 215 million light years away to see what was going on. They saw a Sun-sized star being eaten up by a black hole over a million times bigger.
According to a press release from the ESO, lead author Matt Nicholl said, "The idea of a black hole ‘sucking in’ a nearby star sounds like science fiction. But this is exactly what happens in a tidal disruption event."
As the star gets caught in the black hole's enormous gravity, the black hole pulls off long, thin strands of material that look like spaghetti. A bright burst of energy gets released during the process, which astronomers can detect and observe.
Co-author Thomas Wevers said, "When an unlucky star wanders too close to a supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy, the extreme gravitational pull of the black hole shreds the star into thin streams of material."
The astronomers hope their good luck in being able to watch the spaghettification in real time will help them better understand future tidal disruption events as well as black holes.