Astronomers Discovers A Black Hole Destroying A Huge Star

Space.com

Astronomers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes "have determined that a giant black hole has destroyed a large star and strewn its contents into space," according to NASA.  Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart

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00:00Visit Chandra's Beautiful Universe

00:04Assassin 14 LI

00:07Astronomers have made an unprecedented forensic study of a star that was torn apart

00:15when it ventured too close to a giant black hole and then had its insides tossed out into space.

00:22NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton studied the amount of nitrogen and

00:27carbon near a black hole known to have torn apart a star.

00:31Astronomers think these elements were created inside the star before it was ripped apart

00:36as it neared the black hole.

00:38Astronomers have found many examples of tidal disruption events in recent years where the

00:42gravitational forces from a massive black hole destroy a star.

00:48This causes a flare, often seen in optical and ultraviolet light and x-rays as the star's

00:53debris is heated up.

00:56This one, called Assassin 14 LI stands out for several reasons.

01:04At the time of discovery in November 2014, it was the closest tidal disruption to Earth,

01:10about 290 million light years, in about a decade.

01:15Because of this proximity, Assassin 14 LI has provided an extraordinary level of detail about

01:21the destroyed star.

01:23The research team applied new theoretical models to make improved estimates, compared to previous

01:28work, of the amount of nitrogen and carbon around the black hole.

01:33The relative amount of nitrogen to carbon that was found points to material from the interior

01:38of a doomed star, weighing about three times the mass of the Sun.

01:42This would make the star in Assassin 14 LI one of the most massive, and perhaps the most massive,

01:49that astronomers have seen ripped apart by a black hole to date.

01:54In addition to the unusual size of the destroyed star and the ability to conduct the detailed

01:59forensics on it, Assassin 14 LI is also exciting because of what it means for future studies.

02:06Astronomers have seen moderately massive stars like Assassin 14 LI's in the star cluster containing

02:12the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy.

02:16Therefore, the ability to estimate stellar masses of tidally disrupted stars potentially

02:21gives astronomers a way to identify the presence of star clusters around supermassive black

02:26holes in more distant galaxies.

02:30Until this study, there was a strong possibility that the elements observed in x-rays might have

02:35come from gas released in previous eruptions from the supermassive black hole.

02:40The pattern of elements analyzed here, however, appears to have come from a single star.

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