A star being devoured by a black hole in the universe

Today (30) an international team of scientists announced the discovery of the most distant event from Earth, where A Gap black devouring the star.

It is so far away that it took more than 8 billion years for light to reach us, and this phenomenon occurred when the universe was only a third of its current age.

The researchers say this discovery could help better understand these cosmic meals. The work has been published in the journal Nature.

These phenomena are known as tidal disturbance events and occur when a star comes too close to A Black hole supermassive at the center of galaxies.

We might think that the black hole is simply swallowing the star, but the reality is much more violent.

Tidal disruption is named because the gravity there is so intense that the difference in gravitational force between the side of the star closest to the black hole and the side farther away causes it to be torn in half as it is sucked in and devoured by it. black hole.

The event then generates a large release of energy, which can be detected by our telescopes in the form of X-rays or ultraviolet light.

In some cases (only 1 in 100), a meal also generates an energy boost, as noted in this case. The jet, pointed toward Earth, helped us see the glow from such a great distance.

But the big mystery lies in the details of the formation of the aircraft. The particles produced are accelerated to speeds close to the speed of light, but scientists still don’t know the origin of this phenomenon.

Until now, it was only observed as a source of X-rays or gamma rays, but for the first time it was seen as an emission of visible light. Thus, in addition to being a distance record holder, the event is also an unprecedented find, which could provide important clues about its origins.

Another interesting detail is that the host galaxy of the black hole is not known in any image. Scientists were then forced to play an elimination game, discarding all possible explanations for the observed phenomenon, because they weren’t even sure that there was a supermassive black hole in that direction.

The next step is to find the host galaxy, and to investigate the properties of the black hole capable of generating such a rare event. Thus, the team already has plans to use James Webb Space Telescope To search for the galaxy that has so far eluded discovery by scientists.