Scientists Find Echoes of Black Holes Eating Stars read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/890-scientists-find-echoes-of-black-holes-eating-stars

For the first time, astronomers have clearly observed at infrared wavelengths what happens after a black hole eats a star. Scientists caught black holes swallowing stars and burping energy back up.

Supermassive black holes, with their immense gravitational pull, are notoriously good at clearing out their immediate surroundings by eating nearby objects. When a star passes within a certain distance of a black hole, the stellar material gets stretched and compressed -- or "spaghettified" -- as the black hole swallows it.

Scientists at NASA and the University of Science and Technology of China published two studies this week. It describe these "tidal disruption flares" using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a space telescope that has photographed the entire sky in infrared light.

Sjoert van Velzen, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the NASA study said, "This is the first time we have clearly seen the infrared light echoes from multiple tidal disruption events,"  in a statement.

Van Velzen's study looked at five possible tidal disruption events, and saw the light echo effect in three of them. He also mentioned, “The black hole has destroyed everything between itself and this dust shell.”  The black hole has cleaned its room by throwing flames.

The WISE telescope, which is attuned to infrared radiation, can capture these "echoes" of the star's destruction by measuring the delay between the original light flare and the subsequent echoes. Scientists on the ground can find out how much energy was released as the star got consumed. 

 

The studies also let astronomer’s find out the exact location of the dust web and understand some of its most basic characteristics. Which will help scientists understand not just the dark, dense mysteries of black holes, but also the bright, swirling places that surround them.