[Reading Science] Black Holes That Devour Stars Like Donuts

Hubble Captures Stellar Absorption Process of Supermassive Black Hole

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] An astronomical image showing a black hole capturing a passing star and absorbing it as if turning it into a donut has been released, attracting attention.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently revealed this image, stating that "the Hubble Space Telescope recorded the final moments of a star captured by a black hole." Hubble captured the 'tidal disruption events' of the star 'AT2022dsb,' located about 300 million light-years away from the center of the galaxy 'ESO 583-G004,' being pulled into a black hole and collapsing.

In the image released by NASA, it can be seen that a bright star passing near the black hole is pulled inside the event horizon, torn apart, gasified, and then absorbed while forming a giant donut shape. Of course, this is not observable with the naked eye but is an image created from ultraviolet spectrometer data. NASA explained, "Hubble's data is interpreted as coming from a very bright and hot donut-shaped gas region that was once a star," adding, "It is swirling around the central black hole at a size comparable to the solar system."

Such tidal disruption events caused by black holes have been observed about 100 times. However, stellar collapse caused by a supermassive black hole located at the center of a galaxy, as in this case, is an extremely rare astronomical phenomenon that occurs only a few times in 100,000 years. In March 2021, NASA also observed tidal disruption events caused by black holes in other galaxies using a high-energy space observatory. Emily Engeltaller, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said, "Although it was a very brief observation, it provided detailed information on what happens to the remnants of the star and will help us learn a lot about black holes."

The collapse event of AT2022dsb was first captured on March 1, 2022. Fortunately, it was at a distance observable from Earth and bright enough for ultraviolet spectrometer observations using Hubble.

The results of this study were reported at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society held in Seattle, Washington, USA, from the 8th to the 12th of last month.