Posted on 05/05/2024 1:02:38 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: What happens to a star that goes near a black hole? If the star directly impacts a massive black hole, then the star falls in completely -- and everything vanishes. More likely, though, the star goes close enough to have the black hole's gravity pull away its outer layers, or disrupt, the star. Then, most of the star's gas does not fall into the black hole. These stellar tidal disruption events can be as bright as a supernova, and an increasing amount of them are being discovered by automated sky surveys. In the featured artist's illustration, a star has just passed a massive black hole and sheds gas that continues to orbit. The inner edge of a disk of gas and dust surrounding the black hole is heated by the disruption event and may glow long after the star is gone.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
Light can’t escape beyond the event horizon - the sphere surrounding the black hole where the gravitational attraction is so strong that the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light. Black holes emit ion jets that are visible in different wavelengths and outside of the event horizon there are gas and dust clouds that glow. What this picture demonstrates is a passing star losing mass to the black hole - think of it as a whirlpool injecting star matter as it passes.
There’s typically an accretion disk of stuff not yet fallen in, in a tight orbit around black holes, which are orbiting at extremely high speeds and with very different speeds at different heights, leading to extreme frictional heating and temperatures in the accretion disk. That’s what’s depicted here.
so we shouldnt see the lit orange under lit rim of the hole, nor should we see the stars beyond under the rim....
Hmmm...
For a moment I thought the article was going to be a review of our recent trip through DC to eat at a northern VA restaurant...
You need to zoom in. The actual black hole is tiny in this image. All the other stuff is the accretion disc and the gasses from the wayward star.
Wow.
I dislike that they bill this as PICTURE of the day then post a damned ‘illustration’...
This is a gripe of mine too, but only my third biggest gripe. My gripes:
1) Pandering to substandard muslim photos.
2) Pandering to substandard chinese photos.
3) Posting illustrations and animations when they have huge stockpiles of real photos using technology, and taken by people who honor Western Civilization.
Where is that “passing” star headed?
And what was it doing in such a bad neighborhood?
Agreed.
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