Premium Only Content

Black Hole Snack Attack
sing NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which launched in 2004, scientists have discovered a black hole in a distant galaxy repeatedly nibbling on a Sun-like star. The object heralds a new era of Swift science made possible by a novel method for analyzing data from the satellite’s X-ray Telescope (XRT).
When a star strays too close to a monster black hole, gravitational forces create intense tides that break the star apart into a stream of gas. The leading edge swings around the black hole, and the trailing edge escapes the system. These destructive episodes are called tidal disruption events. Astronomers see them as flares of multiwavelength light created when the debris collides with a disk of material already orbiting the black hole.
Recently, astronomers have been investigating variations on this phenomena, which they call partial or repeating tidal disruptions.
During these events, every time an orbiting star passes close to a black hole, the star bulges outward and sheds material, but survives. The process repeats until the star looses too much gas and finally breaks apart. The characteristics of the individual star and black hole system determine what kind of emission scientists observe, creating a wide array of behaviors to categorize.
On June 22, 2022, XRT captured Swift J0230 for the first time. It lit up in a galaxy around 500 million light-years away in the northern constellation Triangulum. Swift’s XRT has observed nine additional outbursts from the same location roughly every few weeks.
Scientists propose that Swift J0230 is a repeating tidal disruption of a Sun-like star orbiting a black hole with over 200,000 times the Sun’s mass. They estimate the star loses around three Earth masses of material on each pass. This system provides a bridge between other types of suspected repeating disruptions and allowed scientists to model how interactions between different star types and black hole sizes affect what we observe.
Swift J0230’s discovery was possible thanks to a new, automated search of XRT observations called the Swift X-ray Transient Detector.
After the instrument observes a portion of the sky, the data is transmitted to the ground, and the program compares it to previous XRT snapshots of the same spot. If that portion of the X-ray sky has changed, scientists get an alert. In the case of Swift J0230, astronomers were able to rapidly coordinate additional observations of the region.
Music credit: "Teapot Waltz" by Benjamin Parsons from Universal Production Music
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Producer: Sophia Roberts (AIMM)
Science writer: Jeanette Kazmierczak (University of Maryland College Park)
Editor: Sophia Roberts (AIMM)
Narrator: Sophia Roberts (AIMM)
Animator: Chris Smith (KBRwyle)
Project support: Scott Wiessinger (KBRwyle)
This video can be freely shared and downloaded at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14408. While the video in its entirety can be shared without permission, the music and some individual imagery may have been obtained through permission and may not be excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on such imagery may be found here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14408. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit https://nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines.
-
LIVE
Sarah Westall
56 minutes agoHidden Tech Resembles Star Trek: Malaysian Airline, Portals & Wormholes w/ Ashton Forbes
275 watching -
53:29
Professor Nez
4 hours ago🚨🇺🇸 President Trump MAKES HISTORY! The REAL Story of His First 100 Days!
20.5K66 -
17:01
DeVory Darkins
21 hours ago $36.87 earnedDemocrats HUMILIATE AOC as Trump drops bombshell order
49.5K135 -
LIVE
Amish Zaku
2 hours agoRumble Spartans "The One Year" Event
123 watching -
LIVE
OhHiMark1776
2 hours ago🟢04-27-25 ||||| Halo Multiplayer Rumble: No. 13 ||||| Halo MCC (2019)
114 watching -
15:05
Stephen Gardner
1 day ago🔥BREAKING: Trump HAMMERS Zelensky after Kicking France's Macron from meeting about Ukraine!
74.2K292 -
9:20
Tactical Advisor
1 day agoNew Shadow 2 Carry | CZ Compact Upgrade (FIRST LOOK)
68.9K19 -
LIVE
AlphaZeroOmega
3 hours agoHalo Rumble Spartans #13 ONE YEAR of CONQUEST celebration | 🚨RumbleTakeover🚨
69 watching -
7:55
Talk Nerdy Sports - The Ultimate Sports Betting Podcast
7 hours ago4/27/25 - Sunday Service: Vasil’s 10 Holy Locks & PrizePicks Resurrection 💥ðŸ§
49K2 -
18:15
World2Briggs
15 hours ago $17.73 earned10 Cities That Are Slowly Emptying Like a Sad Party
69.3K52