NASA researchers witness a black hole sucking a star for the first time

This catastrophic astronomical event was closely observed for the first time with the help of NASA's planetary exploration satellite Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and other Observatories.

This illustration shows a tidal disruption, which occurs when a passing star gets too close to a black hole and is torn apart into a stream of gas. Some of the gas eventually settles into a structure around the black hole called an accretion disk. 

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Highlights:

1. Such an event happens once in 10 thousand to 100,000 years
2. NASA took help of other agencies to keep a close watch
3. Due to the high brightness, this tidal event could be detected

For the first time in the vastness of cosmos, researchers have seen something which is very important from astronomical point of view. For the first time, researchers at the US Space Agency NASA have observed a star shredding under a cosmic cataclysm by a black hole weighing six million times that of our Sun. This process is also called tidal disruption. This catastrophic astronomical event was closely observed for the first time with the help of NASA's planetary exploration satellite Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and other agencies.

NASA said that tidal disruption in the universe is very rare and it happens once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a galaxy like our own Milky Way. Only 40 such incidents have been seen so far. The lead author of the study, Thomas Holoin of the California-based Carnegie Observatory, said, "TESS helped us see when this event called ASASSN-19bt actually started, which we had never seen before."

This video includes images of a tidal disruption event called ASASSN-19bt taken by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Swift missions, as well as an animation showing how the event unfolded.

Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Holoin said, "Tidal disruption was soon identified with the all-sky Automated Survey for Supernovas (ASAS-SN) located on Earth and because of this we were able to activate multi-wavelength observations in the first few days. Initial data will be very important to understand this physical phenomenon. "According to research published in Astrophysical Journal, this black hole is in the middle of the galaxy '2MASX J07001137-6602251'. It is about 375 million light years away from the Wolles constellation. The size of the teared star can be equal to our sun.

According to NASA, this cosmic event was discovered on January 29 with the help of an ASAS-SN network with 20 robotic telescopes spread across the world, headquartered at Ohio State University in the US. NASA said that when Holoin came to know about the incident from the network's equipment located in South Africa, he immediately put two robotic telescopes in Las Campanas, Chile to work on the exact location of the event in the universe and get an accurate eye. He also took help of other agencies to keep an eye on it.

TESS first recorded this tidal disruption on 21 January. Co-author and graduate researcher at the National Science Foundation, Patrick Volelli, said the brightness of the ASASSN-19BT was very clear, which helped identify the phenomenon as a tidal disruption. The team of Holoin said that the temperature of the ultraviolet light detected with the help of binoculars dropped from 40,000 degree Celsius to 20,000 degree Celsius in just few days. He said that for the first time during the tidal disruption, such a huge temperature drop has been observed in such a short time. However, theoretically it was previously known.