Hubble Discovery Black Hole Twists Star Into Donut Shape

Space.com

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a tidal disruption event 300 million light years away. The donut shaped remains of a star were found around a hungry black hole.  Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Transcript

00:00Astronomers, using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, have recorded a star's final moments in detail

00:06as it was ripped apart and eaten up by a black hole in a tidal disruption event.

00:12The shredded star is nearly 300 million light-years away, but astronomers used Hubble's powerful

00:19ultraviolet sensitivity to analyze its light to gather forensic clues of the violent event.

00:26Hubble data found a very bright, hot, donut-shaped area of gas the size of the solar system swirling

00:32around a black hole.

00:34The swirling gas was once a star.

00:38Usually, astronomers get just a few observations at the beginning of a disruption event, when

00:43it's very bright, but this energetic collision's proximity and brightness allowed Hubble to

00:49gather ultraviolet data over a longer-than-normal time period.

00:55This is a rare opportunity for scientists to create models of what they think is going

00:59on and then compare those models with what Hubble sees.

01:03It is an exciting place for scientists to be, right at the intersection of the known

01:10and the unknown.

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