Astronomers capture supermassive black hole as it eats passing star [View all]
Source: cnn
Astronomers capture supermassive black hole as it eats passing star
By James Griffiths, CNN
Updated 10:32 PM ET, Wed July 6, 2016

Rendering shows jets of particles ejected as a star is consumed by a black hole.
(CNN)A star, caught in the grips of a supermassive black hole.
The immense gravity slowly strips the stellar material from its parent, forming a disc of gas around the black hole as it converts gravitational energy into electromagnetic radiation, producing a bright source of light visible on multiple wavelengths.
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See black hole shred passing star 00:57
An international team of astronomers, led by Jun Yang at Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology, used the European VLBI Network (EVN) to study the event known as Swift J1644+57.
First discovered in 2011, Swift J1644+57 is a supermassive black hole slowly swallowing a star. Or rather, was, the galaxy in which the incredible astronomical event is taking place is so far away its light takes 3.9 billion years to reach Earth.
As the ancient star was sucked into the black hole, Yang says it produced jets of light and particles equivalent to the size "of a 2 euro coin on the Moon as seen from Earth." ............
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/06/health/black-hole-star-radio-telescope/index.html
I am always fascinated by what we are able to know --or not know about about our universes.