(COURTHOUSE NEWS) — Astronomers caught a rare glimpse into the last moments of a dying star before it was ripped apart by a supermassive black hole.
Taking place 215 million light-years away in a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Eridanus, the phenomenon known as a tidal disruption event occurred closer to Earth than any previously recorded and may shed new light on one of the more mysterious astronomical events known to occur.
Such an event occurs when a star passes too close to a black hole, allowing the extreme gravity of the black hole to shred the unfortunate passerby in a process known as “spaghettification” — called such because the resulting pieces of stellar matter are stretched into long, relatively thin strands.
