Watch the black hole swallow a star

For the first time, American astronomers witnessed in space space a phenomenon that occurred when a primitive star approached a giant den and was smashed to pieces by a gravitational black hole. an outbreak of intense radiation.

According to scientists, such an event is only 100 million years old once.

It was recorded on the ' Swift ' gamma telescope that flew in orbit in March this year, under the supervision of the research team led by Professor Joshua Bloom of the University of California at Berkeley. Science magazine.

Image simulating the scene of a " swallowed " black hole by a star. (Photo: NationalGeographic)

The dazzling outbreak of gammma radiation recorded by the Swift telescope was recorded by Sw 1644 + 57 index, occurring in the Dragon constellation on March 28, 2011. At first, scientists thought it was just like other gamma-ray bursts, often observed once a day, and was a sudden disappearance of large stars in black holes.

But on March 31, in an e-mail sent to colleagues, Professor Bloom recounted that the outbreak was stronger than the usual outbreaks, and in general, not the gamma outbreak. , which is the flow of plasma with very high energy, because a star of the same mass as the Sun emits for a moment that the attraction of the black hole is millions of times greater.

After careful analysis of the data recorded by the Swift telescope, as well as referring to other observations of flying ' Hubbble ' and ' Chandra ' telescopes in the recorded universe, it has been confirmed. Professor Bloom's original hypotheses are correct.

The article in Science Magazine wrote: " The star goes too close to a giant black hole, being broken by its gravitational force, producing a major outbreak . This burst has a very high energy, denoted The Sw 1644 + 57 shows that it has characteristics that no previous outbreak has been found in. Observations show that it is a star swallowed by a black hole with a mass of 100,000 to 1 million. Solar mass times '.

The researchers also said that the black hole is located in the center of the Galaxy, about 4 billion light-years from Earth. According to their calculations, this " dead " star created an accredition disc around the black hole, transforming energy into radiant radiation. In addition, gamma radiation also emits plasma currents, spreading out from the poles of the black hole at a rate close to the speed of light.