COLUMBUS – With the help of a worldwide network of robotic telescopes headquartered at Ohio State, a NASA satellite gave astronomers an unexpected glimpse at a black hole ripping a star to shreds.
The network, called ASAS-SN — for All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae — detected the “tidal disruption event” in a galaxy located about 375 million light years from Earth.
A tidal disruption event happens when a star gets too close to a black hole. Depending on a number of factors, including the size of the star, the size of the black hole and how close the star is to the black hole, the black hole can either absorb the star or tear it apart into a long, spaghetti-like strand.