A Hungry Black Hole Devoured a Star, and Its ‚Burp‘ Reveals How It Chowed Down


An artist’s impression of the material falling into a black hole and the resulting jet it produced. Credit: L. Calçada/ESO
A black hole that’s gobbling down a stellar meal is providing insight into how black holes devour matter and affect the evolution of galaxies.

By Nola Taylor Redd | SPACE.com

Researchers found that the X-ray signal burst caused when a black hole shredded a passing star was repeated in the radio wavelengths nearly two weeks later. The radio echo most likely came from an exodus of highly energetic particles streaming out of the black hole, the researchers said.

In 2014, Las Cumbres Observatory’s All-sky Automated Survey for Supernovae, a collection of robotic telescopes spread across the globe, picked up signals from 300 million light-years away. The event, known as ASASSN-14li, occurred as a star was ripped to shreds after passing too close to a black hole. Multiple telescopes immediately turned to track the tidal disruption flare, a powerful explosion of electromagnetic energy caused by the destruction. After poring through about six months‘ worth of data, Dheeraj Pasham, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Sjoert van Velzen, of Johns Hopkins University, found a pattern in the radio wavelength that nearly duplicates the X-ray signal. [No Escape: Dive Into a Black Hole (Infographic)]

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