Astronomers, using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, have recorded a star’s final moments in detail
as it was ripped apart and eaten up by a black hole in a tidal disruption event.
The shredded star is nearly 300 million light-years away,
but astronomers used Hubble’s powerful ultraviolet sensitivity to analyze its
light to gather forensic clues of the violent event.
Hubble data found a very bright, hot, donut-shaped area of gas,
the size of the solar system, swirling around a black hole. The swirling gas was once a star.
Usually, astronomers get just a few observations at the beginning of a disruption event,
when it's very bright. But this energetic collision's proximity and brightness
allowed Hubble to gather ultraviolet data over a longer than normal time period.
This is a rare opportunity for scientists to create models of what they think is going on
and then compare those models with what Hubble sees. It is an exciting
place for scientists to be: right at the intersection of the known and the unknown.
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