Black Hole Accreting with Jet
Illustration Credit: NASA, Swift, Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State U.)
Explanation: What happens when a black hole devours a star? Many details remain unknown, but recent observations are providing new clues. In 2014, a
powerful explosion was recorded by the ground-based robotic telescopes of the
All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) project, and followed up by instruments including
NASA's Earth-orbiting
Swift satellite. Computer modeling of these emissions fit a star being ripped apart by a distant
supermassive black hole. The results of such a collision are portrayed in the
featured artistic illustration. The
black hole itself is a depicted as a tiny black dot in the center. As matter falls toward the hole, it collides with other matter and
heats up. Surrounding the black hole is an
accretion disk of hot matter that used to be the star, with a
jet emanating from the
black hole's spin axis.
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