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Amaze Lab
  • 8/20/2024
Black holes devour anything and everything that crosses over their event horizons, even light. However, what happens when only part of something crosses over?
Transcript
00:00Black holes devour anything and everything that crosses over their event horizons, even
00:08light.
00:09However, what happens when only part of something crosses over?
00:12Well, that's exactly what's happening to a star 860 million light years away called
00:16AT2018FYK, and astronomers are currently observing it with the Chandra X-ray Telescope.
00:23Specifically, they have detected a tidal disruption event, or TDE, caused when a star
00:27gets trapped and eaten by a black hole.
00:29However, this star didn't get immediately swallowed up, with experts noticing yet another
00:33X-ray spike from the same spot two years later.
00:36They now say that's because some of the star is being eaten yet again after making
00:40a massive elliptical arc around the supermassive black hole, meaning it will likely not be
00:45the last one we see as the star gets devoured bit by bit.
00:49Every few years, astronomers should be able to point the Chandra X-ray Telescope in its
00:53direction and capture data from the black hole snack time.
00:57Astronomers have already noticed a decrease in luminosity of the TDE, meaning the star
01:01has lost significant mass.
01:02Meanwhile, AT2018FYK's binary star pair was likely slingshotted away from the black
01:08hole, with experts believing it may have left its galaxy completely.

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