"Unusually close" look at a black hole devouring a star, NASA

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21-12-2022, 23:00

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INA – SOURCES

"Unusually close" observations from NASA reveal just how complex and catastrophic it can be.

The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that multiple telescopes recently watched a massive black hole about 10 times the mass of our sun located about 250 million light-years away from Earth "tearing apart an unlucky star that wandered too close."

It was the fifth-closest observation of such an occurrence, known as a tidal disruption event, and was first spotted on March 1, 2021.

"The side of the star nearest the black hole was pulled harder than the far side of the star, stretching the entire thing apart and leaving nothing but a long noodle of hot gas," NASA said.