Massive Black Hole Shreds Passing Star (Animation Only)
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- Visualizations by:
- Brian Monroe
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- Written by:
- Francis Reddy
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- Scientific consulting by:
- Jon Miller
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- Produced by:
- Scott Wiessinger
- View full credits
A star approaching too close to a massive black hole is torn apart by tidal forces, as shown in this artist's rendering. Filaments containing much of the star's mass fall toward the black hole. Eventually these gaseous filaments merge into a smooth, hot disc glowing brightly in X-rays. As the disk forms, it's central region heats up tremendously, which drives a flow of material, called a wind, away from the disk.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab
Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.
For complete transcript, click here.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. However, individual items should be credited as indicated above.
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Animator
- Brian Monroe (USRA) [Lead]
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Writer
- Francis Reddy (University of Maryland College Park) [Lead]
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Scientist
- Jon Miller (University of Michigan) [Lead]
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Producer
- Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Related Pages
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ID: 12005 Produced Video
Massive Black Hole Shreds Passing Star
Read moreA star approaching too close to a massive black hole is torn apart by tidal forces, as shown in this artist's rendering. Filaments containing much of the star's mass fall toward the black hole. Eventually these gaseous filaments merge into a smooth, hot disk glowing brightly in X-rays. As the disk forms, its central region heats up tremendously, which drives a flow of material, called a wind, away from the disk. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI LabWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here. || Swift_Tidal_Disruption_2_Still_print.jpg (1024x576) [172.7 KB] || Swift_Tidal_Disruption_2_Still.jpg (1920x1080) [606.7 KB] || Swift_Tidal_Disruption_2_Still_web.png (320x180) [98.5 KB] || Swift_Tidal_Disruption_2_Still_thm.png (80x40) [6.8 KB] || Swift_Tidal_Disruption_2_Still_searchweb.png (320x180) [98.4 KB] || 12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_H264_Best_1920x1080_5994.mov (1920x1080) [2.5 GB] || APPLE_TV_12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_FINAL_appletv_subtitles.m4v (1280x720) [37.5 MB] || APPLE_TV_12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_FINAL_appletv.m4v (1280x720) [37.4 MB] || WMV_12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_FINAL_HD.wmv (1920x1080) [49.6 MB] || 12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_MPEG4_1920X1080_2997.webm (1920x1080) [7.7 MB] || 12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_MPEG4_1920X1080_2997.mp4 (1920x1080) [40.5 MB] || 12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_H264_Good_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [301.2 MB] || 12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_FINAL_youtube_hq.mov (1920x1080) [1.3 GB] || 12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_ProRes_1920x1080_5994.mov (1920x1080) [2.1 GB] || 12005_Swift_Tidal_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [248 bytes] || 12005_Swift_Tidal_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [261 bytes] || NASA_PODCAST_12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_FINAL_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [12.3 MB] || 12005_Swift_Tidal_Music_FINAL_lowres.mp4 (480x272) [10.6 MB] ||
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ID: 10807 Produced Video
NASA's Swift Satellite Spots Black Hole Devouring A Star
Read moreIn late March 2011, NASA's Swift satellite alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from a new source in the constellation Draco. They soon realized that the source, which is now known as Swift J1644+57, was the result of a truly extraordinary event — the awakening of a distant galaxy's dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The galaxy is so far away that the radiation from the blast has traveled 3.9 billion years before reaching Earth. Most galaxies, including our own, possess a central supersized black hole weighing millions of times the sun's mass. According to the new studies, the black hole in the galaxy hosting Swift J1644+57 may be twice the mass of the four-million-solar-mass black hole lurking at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. As a star falls toward a black hole, it is ripped apart by intense tides. The gas is corralled into a disk that swirls around the black hole and becomes rapidly heated to temperatures of millions of degrees. The innermost gas in the disk spirals toward the black hole, where rapid motion and magnetism creates dual, oppositely directed "funnels" through which some particles may escape. Particle jets driving matter at velocities greater than 80-90 percent the speed of light form along the black hole's spin axis. In the case of Swift J1644+57, one of these jets happened to point straight at Earth.Theoretical studies of tidally disrupted stars suggested that they would appear as flares at optical and ultraviolet energies. The brightness and energy of a black hole's jet is greatly enhanced when viewed head-on. The phenomenon, called relativistic beaming, explains why Swift J1644+57 was seen at X-ray energies and appeared so strikingly luminous. When first detected on March 28, the flares were initially assumed to signal a gamma-ray burst, one of the nearly daily short blasts of high-energy radiation often associated with the death of a massive star and the birth of a black hole in the distant universe. But as the emission continued to brighten and flare, astronomers realized that the most plausible explanation was the tidal disruption of a sun-like star seen as beamed emission. ||
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ID: 12621 Produced Video
![Music credit: "High Heelz" by Donn Wilkerson [BMI] and Lance Sumner [BMI]; Killer Tracks BMI; Killer Tracks Production MusicWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.](/vis/a010000/a012600/a012621/Hubble_black_hole_birth_thumbnail.png)
Star Gives Birth to Possible Black Hole in Hubble and Spitzer Images
Read moreMusic credit: "High Heelz" by Donn Wilkerson [BMI] and Lance Sumner [BMI]; Killer Tracks BMI; Killer Tracks Production MusicWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. || Hubble_black_hole_birth_thumbnail.png (1920x1080) [3.4 MB] || Hubble_black_hole_birth_thumbnail_print.jpg (1024x576) [163.2 KB] || Hubble_black_hole_birth_thumbnail_searchweb.png (320x180) [126.7 KB] || Hubble_black_hole_birth_thumbnail_thm.png (80x40) [7.9 KB] || Hubble_black_hole_birth_H264.mp4 (1920x1080) [228.3 MB] || Hubble_black_hole_birth_H264.webm (1920x1080) [26.8 MB] || Hubble_black_hole_birth_APR422.mov (1920x1080) [5.8 GB] || Hubble_black_hole_birth.en_US.srt [4.7 KB] || Hubble_black_hole_birth.en_US.vtt [4.7 KB] ||
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ID: 12539 Produced Video
![Music credit: "Stealth Car" by Tom Sue [GEMA] and Zac Singer [GEMA]; Ed. Berlin Production Music/Universal Publishing Production Music GmbH GEMA; Berlin Production Music; Killer Tracks Production MusicWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.](/vis/a010000/a012500/a012539/hubble_rogue_black_hole_thumbnail2.png)
Hubble Detects a Rogue Supermassive Black Hole
Read moreThe Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a quasar named 3C 186 that is offset from the center of its galaxy. Astronomers hypothesize that this supermassive black hole was jettisoned from the center of its galaxy by the recoil from gravitational waves produced by the merging of two supermassive black holes. Read the press release here - https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/feature/gravitational-wave-kicks-monster-black-hole-out-of-galactic-coreDownload the Hubble images here - http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-12Read the science paper here - http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hvi/uploads/science_paper/file_attachment/231/3c186.pdf ||
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