An incredibly bright flash that appeared in the night sky in February was the result of a star straying too close to a supermassive black hole, meeting its untimely end there as it was ripped to shreds.
Typically, gamma-ray bursts, the powerful jets of X-rays released as massive stars collapse, explain the brightest flashes in the night sky.
Astronomers used the Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR, or NICER, an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station, to analyze the signal. The extreme X-rays released by the event were created when the shredded star spun up a swirling whirpool of debris as it fell into the black hole.The Zwicky Transient Facility is one of the largest used to study the universe and spy unusual cosmic events.
Only about 1% of tidal disruption events result in relativistic jets that launch plasma and radiation from the poles of a rotating black hole.
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