The black hole created the ideal doughnut-shaped of doom by wrapping the layers of the torn star around itself.
A star is being drained of its material and stretched into the shape of a doughnut by a black hole, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Located 300 million light-years from Earth at the center of the galaxy ESO 583-G004, the supermassive black hole snared and destroyed the star after it strayed too close, emitting a powerful ultraviolet light that astronomers used to pinpoint the catastrophic encounter.
The unhappy star is subjected to enormous tidal forces as a result of a black hole’s feeding activity. The gravity acting on the parts of the star closest to the black hole is significantly stronger than that acting on the star’s farside as the star is drawn ever-closer to the black hole’s mouth. Due to this discrepancy, the star becomes “spaghettified,” turning it into a long, string-like structure that is tightly twisted around the black hole layer by layer, much like spaghetti around a fork.
This doughnut-shaped mass of heated plasma rapidly rushes around the black hole before spinning out into a massive jet of energy and matter. This dazzling flash is visible to optical, X-ray, and radio-wave observatories.
Astronomers were able to observe this specific black hole feeding session for a longer amount of time than is common for tidal disruption events due to its remarkable brightness. According to the experts, this could provide fascinating new insights into the unlucky star’s final moments.
According to a N.A.S.A release, astronomer Peter Maksym of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, “We’re looking someplace on the border of that doughnut.” We are witnessing a stellar wind being projected at us at a speed of 20 million miles per hour over the surface of the black hole (three percent the speed of light). We’re still trying to process the event, in all honesty.
For a star, spaghettification is a dramatic process. The outer atmospheric layers of the star are stripped first. Then, they circle the black hole to form the tight yarn ball the researchers observed. The remainder of the star soon follows, accelerating around the black hole. Despite black holes’ reputation as voracious eaters, most of the star’s matter will escape; only 1% of a typical star ever gets swallowed by a black hole, Live Science previously reported.The results were reported at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society, held in Seattle this week.
