Explanation:
What happens when a star gets too close to a black hole?
Recent observations from Earth-orbiting observatories of an event dubbed
ASASSN-14li,
in a distant galactic center,
appears to be giving one star's harrowing story.
Although angularly unresolved, variations in high energy light
indicate that some of the star became
shredded and reformed into a
disk swirling
around the dark abyss.
In the hypothesized
scenario
envisioned,
a jet formed on the spin axis of the black hole.
The innermost part of the disk, colored white, glows most strongly in
X-rays
and may drive a periodic
wind, shown in blue.
Future X-ray and ultraviolet observations of stellar disruptions by
black holes -- including
those in the
center of our own galaxy --
hold promise of telling us about the
complex dynamics
of some of the hottest and highest-gravity places in the universe.
