NASA | Animation: NASA's Swift Satellite Spots Black Hole Devouring A Star

In late March 2011, NASA's Swift satellite alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from a new source in the constellation Draco. They soon realized that the source, which is now known as Swift J1644+57, was the result of a truly extraordinary event -- the awakening of a distant galaxy's dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The galaxy is so far away that the radiation from the blast has traveled 3.9 billion years before reaching Earth.

Most galaxies, including our own, possess a central supersized black hole weighing millions of times the sun's mass. According to the new studies, the black hole in the galaxy hosting Swift J1644+57 may be twice the mass of the four-million-solar-mass black hole lurking at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. As a star falls toward a black hole, it is ripped apart by intense tides. The gas is corralled into a disk that swirls around the black hole and becomes rapidly heated to temperatures of millions of degrees.

The innermost gas in the disk spirals toward the black hole, where rapid motion and magnetism creates dual, oppositely directed "funnels" through which some particles may escape. Particle jets driving matter at velocities greater than 80-90 percent the speed of light form along the black hole's spin axis. In the case of Swift J1644+57, one of these jets happened to point straight at Earth.

Theoretical studies of tidally disrupted stars suggested that they would appear as flares at optical and ultraviolet energies. The brightness and energy of a black hole's jet is greatly enhanced when viewed head-on. The phenomenon, called relativistic beaming, explains why Swift J1644+57 was seen at X-ray energies and appeared so strikingly luminous.

When first detected on March 28, the flares were initially assumed to signal a gamma-ray burst, one of the nearly daily short blasts of high-energy radiation often associated with the death of a massive star and the birth of a black hole in the distant universe. But as the emission continued to brighten and flare, astronomers realized that the most plausible explanation was the tidal disruption of a sun-like star seen as beamed emission.




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[ofansifstoper]

Bon appetit! 

[polerkole]

look at the name of the video "animation" its an animation of readings they received.

[Richard Bussell]

Without an opposite force, a yin would not yang, and a yang would not yin.

If the yin and yang spin enough, a void is created in the center and a channel is started that will funnel energy and matter in a new direction.

Does the hole or void truly feed or just excite what comes near?

Without them the universe might be a boring and dead place IMO.

[maxsil89]

It's incomprahensibly far away, all the information we've got is not visual. Plus this thing takes several thousands of years to happen, it's simply an animation

[UnknownXV]

Would be hard to video tape that since it's several quadrillion quadrillion quadrillion miles away, and the whole event would take place over many years.

[Enis bourbia]

It's that real or fake omg

[ricoksboom]

Draco iz my fave consolation ( because of dragon heart )

[Stryker Vin]

Even blackhole knows to burppppppp!!!!

[AceionzHardstyle]

Animation. There are no real footage of black holes.

[Jiří Fišer]

The music in the description means that I have to imagine it playing?

[Gino Ramos]

I have a suggestion.

Run.

[OneMale2012]

the particle jets seen in the video are not accurate as they are shown to be pointed away from us , in actuality the one particle jet is pointed directly at us however it is precessional so its on a on target and off target wobble first discovered shortly after the march 11 2011 japan tsunami, unfortunately it is still becoming stronger unleashing x-rays and particles on us from the north, nasa predicts around dec 21 2012 it will peak or later in 2013