Astronomers have made a remarkable observation of a Sun-like star "repeatedly shredded and consumed" by a black hole situated approximately 500 million light years away. As per a report publiushed in The Guardian, this extraordinary event generated regular bursts of luminosity occurring at intervals of roughly 25 days, a phenomenon that drew the attention of researchers from the University of Leicester.
Typically, black hole outbursts, known as tidal disruption events, appear when a black hole devours a star. However, in this instance, the black hole was emitting recurrent emissions, indicating that it was repeatedly causing partial destruction to the stars it consumed, as per The Guardian report. The events of repeated eruptions lead to two distinct types of outbursts: some transpiring every few hours, while others that take place annually. The researchers noted that the observed regularity fell somewhere in between these two categories.
The observations revealed an unexpected pattern in the star's behaviour. Instead of fading away as anticipated, the star, known as Swift J0230, would radiate intensely for a duration of seven to 10 days before abruptly extinguishing, repeating this cycle approximately every 25 days. The research, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, has filled a critical gap in our understanding of how black holes disrupt stars in orbit.
"In most of the systems we've seen in the past, the star is completely destroyed. Swift J0230 is an exciting addition to the class of partially disrupted stars," Dr Robert Eyles-Ferris, who recently completed his PhD at the University of Leicester, told The Guardian.
The study's lead author, Dr Phil Evans from the University of Leicester's School of Physics and Astronomy, said, "This is the first time we've seen a star like our sun being repeatedly shredded and consumed by a low-mass black hole."
Based on models of the Swift J0230 outburst, it is estimated that the star is of a size similar to our Sun and follows an elliptical orbit around a low-mass black hole situated at the centre of its galaxy. Calculations suggest that material equivalent to the mass of three Earths is ripped from Swift J0230's atmosphere and heated up as it plunges into the black hole, generating intense temperatures of approximately 2,000,000 degrees Celsius and releasing huge amount of X-rays. These X-rays were initially detected by NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.
The researchers estimate that the black hole's mass ranges from 10,000 to 100,000 times that of the Sun, making it relatively small for a supermassive black hole.
