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A Supermassive Black Hole Has Been Devouring a Star For a Decade (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: A massive black hole devoured a star over a 10 year period, setting a new record for the longest space meal ever observed, according to new research. Researchers spotted the ravenous black hole with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Swift satellite as well as ESA's XMM-Newton, according to a statement from NASA. When objects like stars get too close to black holes, the intense gravity of the black hole can rip the star apart in what's called a tidal disruption event (TDE), according to NASA. While some of the debris from the star is flung forward, parts of it are pulled back and ingested by the black hole, where it heats up and emits an X-ray flare, NASA said in a statement. The tidal disruption event spotted by the trio of X-ray telescopes, is unlike anything researchers have ever seen, lasting ten times longer than any observed incident of star's death caused by a black hole, according to research published in Nature Astronomy Feb. 6. The black hole, dubbed XJ1500+0154, is located in a galaxy 1.8 billion light-years from Earth. Researchers first spotted it in 2005 and it reached peak brightness in 2008, according to the statement. According to NASA, researchers believe that the black hole may have consumed the most massive star ever completely torn apart during a TDE.
"Zathras can never have anything nice."
The reasons why am I still here on this site are waning....
Well, there is also a link to Nasa and another to arxiv, so that should be enough..
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
This is a valid source for science news?
It is an accurate, well-written article, with links to more information. If you have a legitimate complaint about TFA, then you explain what it is. Otherwise, stop whining. Personally, I am happy to see USAToday publishing stories like this, and I am glad that Slashdot is covering it as well. We need more stories like this.
Anyway, I for one am happy that it is happening 1.8 billion light years away. A total stellar collapse can emit enough gamma rays to sterilize a galaxy.
For a decade, almost 2 billon years ago ... pretty heady stuff. I wonder what's happening now ?
The article and summary mention nothing about the real story here: What kind of shirt was the spokesman wearing when he made the announcement? We know from direct empirical evidence that this is more important than humanity landing on a comet, much less some black hole somewhere.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
What a strange post. It's like one of the early day Slashdotters wrote the first paragraph, then without hitting send left his browser window open and some deranged passer-by came along and finished the post.
...to Muse.
... as though millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror ... and were silenced over a ten year period ...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You obviously didn't even bother reading it. Yes, it's valid. It's your cognitive functions that are iffy.
Stop playing with your food and eat it!
There is still some of the old /. left. The problem is the signal to noise ratio, which is directly attributable to insecure trolls who feel better about their pathetic lives by being assholes.
Then you're on the wrong site. Shouldn't you be busy playing COD in your mother's basement?
30+ replies and no "Yo Mamma" jokes?
It's almost like we're maturing. Almost.
I mean, could it actually Starkiller Base?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
No you don't understand. Kids these days only read the first sentence, so effectively there is no link to NASA.
Back in my day I didn't bother with reading. I just looked at the pictures. ... Like the NASA picture.