{"id":25505,"date":"2022-11-30T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T16:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=25505"},"modified":"2022-11-30T01:11:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T06:11:01","slug":"eso-distant-black-hole-swallowing-a-star-discovered-in-visible-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=25505","title":{"rendered":"ESO: Distant black hole swallowing a star discovered in visible light"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO)<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Most distant detection of a black hole swallowing a star<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This artist\u2019s impression illustrates how it might look when a star approaches too close to a black hole, where the star is squeezed by the intense gravitational pull of the black hole. Some of the star\u2019s material gets pulled in and swirls around the black hole forming the disc that can be seen in this image. In rare cases, such as this one, jets of matter and radiation are shot out from the poles of the black hole. In the case of the AT2022cmc event, evidence of the jets was detected by various telescopes including the VLT, which determined this was the most distant example of such an event.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier this year, the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope (ESO\u2019s VLT) was alerted after an unusual source of visible light had been detected by a survey telescope. The VLT, together with other telescopes, was swiftly repositioned towards the source: a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy that had devoured a star, expelling the leftovers in a jet. The VLT determined it to be the furthest example of such an event to have ever been observed. Because the jet is pointing almost towards us, this is also the first time it has been discovered with visible light, providing a new way of detecting these extreme events.<\/p>\n

Stars that wander too close to a black hole are ripped apart by the incredible tidal forces<\/a> of the black hole in what is known as a tidal disruption event (TDE). Approximately 1% of these cause jets of plasma and radiation to be ejected from the poles of the rotating black hole. In 1971<\/a>, the black hole pioneer John Wheeler[1]<\/a> introduced the concept of jetted-TDEs as \u201ca tube of toothpaste gripped tight about its middle,<\/em>\u201d causing the system to \u201csquirt matter out of both ends.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have only seen a handful of these jetted-TDEs and they remain very exotic and poorly understood events<\/em>,\u201d<\/p>\n

says Nial Tanvir from the University of Leicester in the UK, who led the observations to determine the object\u2019s distance with the VLT. Astronomers are thus constantly hunting for these extreme events to understand how the jets are actually created and why such a small fraction of TDEs produce them.<\/p>\n