Scientists spot Sun-like star being devoured by a hungry black hole
NASA have discovered a Sun-like star that is being repeatedly nibbled on by a hungry black hole in a galaxy around 500 million light-years away.
The star called Swift J023017.0+283603 (or Swift J0230 for short), was discovered using NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which was launched in 2004. The scientists used a novel method for analysing data from the satellite's X-ray Telescope (XRT).
On June 22, last year the XRT captured Swift J0230 for the first time.
It lit up in a galaxy around 500 million light-years away in the northern constellation Triangulum. Swift's XRT observed nine additional outbursts from the same location roughly every few weeks.
Swift was originally designed to study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the cosmos.
Since the satellite launched, however, scientists have recognised its ability to study a whole host of celestial objects, like tidal disruptions and comets.
During tidal disruption events, every time an orbiting star passes close to a black hole, the star bulges outward and sheds material, but survives. The process repeats until the star loses too much gas and finally breaks apart.
Phil Evans, an astrophysicist at the University of Leicester in the UK and Swift team member proposed that Swift J0230 is a repeating tidal disruption of a Sun-like star orbiting a black hole with over 200,000 times the Sun's mass.
They estimate the star loses around three Earth masses of material on each pass.
