What happens to a star that goes near a black hole? The gravitational pull starts to tear apart the star. The majority of star’s debris being torn apart either fall directly into the black hole or revolves around it. You can also find a small portion of the star’s mass being catapulted by the black hole’s gravity. The star debris falling into the black hole forms an accretion disk thus feeding the black hole slowly and makes it grow time after time. These disruption events are most times as bright as a supernova and are being discovered by automated sky surveys. The spectral analysis of gases in the accretion disk can tell us the kind of star being consumed by the monster.
An enormous amount of hydrogen would signal a large and young star whereas the presence of helium would point to the cores of older stars with hydrogen shells stripped away. Our theory suggests that black holes that are too massive will not trigger TDEs(Tidal disruption event). Black holes having a mass greater than 100 million suns should swallow stars as a whole instead of tearing and forming accretion disks. So far all the TDEs discovered come from smaller galaxies thus supporting our claim.
-Vivek Karunakaran
Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech
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