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Astronomers have observed that a star like the Sun is “repeatedly torn apart and consumed” by a black hole located about 500 light-years away.
This dramatic event led to the generation of regular bursts of light approximately every 25 days, which scientists at the University of Leicester discovered.
Normally, black hole explosions – known as violent wave turbulence events – appear when a black hole consumes a star, but frequent emissions mean they only partially destroy stars over and over again. In cases where explosions are repeated, two types of explosions occur: those that occur every few hours and those that occur every year or so, according to scientists.
In this case, the team said, the uniformity of emissions between the two decreased. Observations showed that instead of decaying, the star shines brightly for 7-10 days and then suddenly goes out, repeating this process approximately every 25 days.
The scientists said that their work, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, provides the “missing link” in understanding how black holes disrupt the stars they orbit.
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