{"id":790193,"date":"2024-10-11T05:25:54","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T10:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=790193"},"modified":"2024-10-11T05:25:54","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T10:25:54","slug":"black-hole-destroys-a-star-goes-after-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=790193","title":{"rendered":"Black hole destroys a star, goes after another"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Quick Look: Black Hole Destroys Star and Goes After Another\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NEK1FIBjtKw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><em>Watch an artist\u2019s concept of a black hole shredding a star and the resulting debris hitting a second star.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>In 2019, a black hole shredded a star<\/strong>. The remains of the star created an expanding debris disk around the black hole.<\/li>\n<li><strong>After a few years, the debris disk expanded<\/strong> into the vicinity of another star that was formerly out of reach of the black hole.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Now the debris disk of the black hole is pummeling the star<\/strong>, popping off flashes in X-rays every 48 hours.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Chandra X-Ray Observatory published this original article on October 9, 2024. Edits by EarthSky.<\/p>\n<h3>Black hole destroys star, goes after another<\/h3>\n<p>A massive black hole has torn apart one star and is now using that stellar wreckage to pummel another star or smaller black hole that used to be in the clear.<\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer), Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and other telescopes made this discovery. The discovery helps astronomers link two mysteries where there had previously only been hints of a connection.<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, astronomers witnessed the signal of a star that got too close to a black hole and was destroyed by the black hole\u2019s gravitational forces. Once shredded, the star\u2019s remains form a disk that circles around the black hole, like a type of stellar graveyard.<\/p>\n<p>Over a few years, however, this disk has expanded outward and is now directly in the path of another star, or possibly a stellar-mass black hole, orbiting the massive black hole at a previously safe distance. This orbiting star is now repeatedly crashing through the debris disk, about once every 48 hours, as it circles. Chandra captured the bursts of X-rays caused by these collisions.<\/p>\n<p>Be a part of something big! EarthSky has upped its game with a fresh community photo page, engaging livestreams, and thrilling watch parties. Your donation can help us reach our $50,000 match goal. Let\u2019s make an impact together! <\/p>\n<h3>Black hole debris disk<\/h3>\n<p>Matt Nicholl of Queen\u2019s University Belfast, United Kingdom, is the lead author of the study that appears in the current issue of <em>Nature<\/em>. The paper on the black hole \u2013 dated October 9, 2024 \u2013 is available at arXiv. Nicholl said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Imagine a diver repeatedly going into a pool and creating a splash every time she enters the water. The star in this comparison is like the diver and the disk is the pool, and each time the star strikes the surface it creates a huge \u2018splash\u2019 of gas and X-rays. As the star orbits around the black hole, it does this over and over again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3>Quasi-periodic eruptions<\/h3>\n<p>Scientists have documented many cases where an object gets too close to a black hole and gets torn apart in a single burst of light. Astronomers call these \u201ctidal disruption events.\u201d In recent years, astronomers have also discovered a new class of bright flashes from the centers of galaxies, which they\u2019ve detected only in X-rays and which repeat many times. These events are also connected to supermassive black holes, but astronomers could not explain what caused the semi-regular bursts of X-rays. They dubbed these \u201cquasi-periodic eruptions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Co-author Dheeraj Pasham of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said: <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>There had been feverish speculation that these phenomena were connected, and now we\u2019ve discovered the proof that they are. It\u2019s like getting a cosmic two-for-one in terms of solving mysteries.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3>Meet AT2019qiz<\/h3>\n<p>The Zwicky Transient Facility \u2013 a wide-field optical telescope at the Palomar Observatory \u2013 first discovered this tidal disruption event in 2019. Astronomers have now named it AT2019qiz. In 2023, astronomers used both Chandra and Hubble to study the debris left behind after the tidal disruption had ended.<\/p>\n<p>Chandra obtained data during three different observations, each separated by about four to five hours. The total exposure of about 14 hours of Chandra time revealed only a weak signal in the first and last chunk, but a very strong signal in the middle observation.<\/p>\n<p>From there Nicholl and his colleagues used NICER to look frequently at AT2019qiz for repeated X-ray bursts. The NICER data showed that AT2019qiz erupts roughly every 48 hours. Observations from Swift and India\u2019s AstroSat telescope cemented the finding.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_489501\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-489501\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-489501\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This artist\u2019s impression shows the aftermath of a supermassive black hole destroying a star. Tidal forces from the black hole ripped the star apart when it approached too close. Some of the star\u2019s gas (red) is orbiting around and falling into the black hole. Wind blows away a portion of the gas (blue). Two X-ray telescopes have probed the elements contained in this wind and concluded that the star was likely about 3 times as massive as the sun before it met its demise. Image via  NASA\/ CXC\/ Queen\u2019s Univ. Belfast\/ M. Nicholl et al. (X-ray); PanSTARRS, NSF\/ Legacy Survey\/ SDSS (Optical\/infrared); Illustration: Soheb Mandhai\/ The Astro Phoenix; Image Processing: NASA\/ CXC\/ SAO\/ N. Wolk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>A pause between destruction and eruption<\/h3>\n<p>Scientists obtained ultraviolet data from Hubble at the same time as the Chandra observations. This data allowed the scientists to determine the size of the disk around the supermassive black hole. They found the disk had become large enough that if any object was orbiting the black hole with a period of about a week or less, it would collide with the disk and cause eruptions.<\/p>\n<p>Co-author Andrew Mummery of Oxford University said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This is a big breakthrough in our understanding of the origin of these regular eruptions. We now realize we need to wait a few years for the eruptions to \u2018turn on\u2019 after a star has been torn apart because it takes some time for the disk to spread out far enough to encounter another star.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This result has implications for searching for more quasi-periodic eruptions associated with tidal disruptions. Finding more of these would allow astronomers to measure the prevalence and distances of objects in close orbits around supermassive black holes. Some of these may be excellent targets for the planned future gravitational wave observatories. NASA\u2019s missions are part of a growing, worldwide network of missions with different but complementary capabilities, watching for changes like these to solve mysteries of how the universe works.<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line: Astronomers discovered a black hole shredded one star and now, a few years later, the star\u2019s debris disk is pummeling another star near the black hole. Every time this second star gets hit with a wave of debris, it flashes in X-ray.<\/p>\n<p>Source: Quasi-periodic X-ray eruptions years after a nearby tidal disruption event<\/p>\n<p>Via Chandra X-Ray Observatory<\/p>\n<p>Read more: Black hole duo will merge in a distant galaxy<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"cp-load-after-post\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"post-author\">\n<h4>EarthSky Voices<\/h4>\n<p>                    View Articles\n                  <\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-tags\">\n<h6 data-udy-fe=\"text_7c58270d\">About the Author:<\/h6>\n<p>Members of the EarthSky community &#8211; including scientists, as well as science and nature writers from across the globe &#8211; weigh in on what&#8217;s important to them.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/space\/chandra-black-hole-destroys-star-second-hit-at2019qiz\/?rand=772280\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watch an artist\u2019s concept of a black hole shredding a star and the resulting debris hitting a second star. In 2019, a black hole shredded a star. The remains of&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":790194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-790193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-sky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=790193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/790194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=790193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=790193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=790193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}