Hundreds of millions of light-years away in a distant galaxy, a star orbiting a supermassive black hole is being violently ripped apart under the black hole's immense gravitational pull. According to Wevers, having the opportunity to study a partial TDE gives unprecedented insight into the existence of supermassive black holes and the orbital dynamics of stars in the centers of galaxies. "When the core returns to the black hole it essentially steals all the gas away from the black hole via gravity and as a result there is no matter to accrete and hence the system goes dark," Pasham says. If the star collided head-on with the black hole and passed the event horizon -- the threshold where the speed needed to escape the black hole surpasses the speed of light -- the star would be consumed by the black hole. "This study outlines methodology to potentially predict the next snack times of supermassive black holes in external galaxies," says Pasham.

Source: The Nation January 13, 2023 23:06 UTC