Tidal Disruption (IMAGE)
Caption
In this artist's rendering, a thick accretion disk has formed around a supermassive black hole following the tidal disruption of a star that wandered too close. Stellar debris has fallen toward the black hole and collected into a thick, chaotic disk of hot gas. Flashes of X-ray light near the center of the disk result in light echoes that allow astronomers to map the structure of the funnel-like flow, revealing -- for the first time -- strong gravity effects around a normally quiescent black hole.
Credit
NASA/Swift/Aurore Simonnet, Sonoma State U.
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