<p align="center"><a href="http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/rxj1242/"><img src="http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/rxj1242/rxj1242_comp.jpg" border="0" alt="Click for details"></A> <p align="left">X-ray data from Chandra, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton, and the German Roengtensatellite (ROSAT) X-ray observatories provide direct evidence for the catastrophic destruction of a star that wandered too close to a supermassive black hole. The accompanying illustration (top) depicts how such an event may have occurred. A close encounter with another star put the doomed star (orange circle) on a path that took it near a supermassive black hole. The enormous gravity of the giant black hole stretched the star until it was torn apart. Because of the momentum and energy of the accretion process, only a few percent of the disrupted star's mass (indicated by the white stream) was swallowed by the black hole, while the rest of was flung away into the surrounding galaxy.
I do not doubt black holes or intense gravitational areas exist, but the illustration on top does look different than the actual Chandra x-ray image and the ESO optical image. Why are the illustrations often depicted on the news as actual images?
i don't agree on the artistic representation, they never get it good, spagette'pi'cation dosen't happen, moddel it on a simple physiscs engine, the increased surface area and disruption to the inner components from change of pressure would make for a much preetier picture with lots of flares and swelling, i need to get my coloured pencils back out and show how it should look
I used to love drawing pictures like that as a kid. I imagine the star's atmosphere would distend elliptically both toward and away from the black hole, with (as Eggsited said) cataclysmic flare activity on the photosphere vastly increasing the mass of the atmosphere. Gradually, the bulk of the coronal mass would pass the LaGrange point and fall towards the hole; as the star lost mass, its gravity would weaken and the LaGrange point move closer to the photosphere, which would shrink until the star lacked sufficient gravity to bind itself together at all. Then there would simply be a fat streamer of plasma "slingshotting" around the hole.
It would be helpful for the rest of us if you could give us an actual play-by-play of the actual demise of a star once it get's close enough to the event horizon to document the actual chain of events as a nearby star approaches a Supermassive Black Hole.........To do that means that you would have to be close proximity to it. Say within a solar system diameter for starters. I'm sure your commentary on the subject, especially at close range would be of much interest and value to the rest of the scientific community......providing your vocal cord molecules and atoms are still entact long enough to provide the documentary. Atta Boy Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well... if I had the means to travel to such a location, I'm not sure I'd want to sacrifice my life in the name of science - there'd be so much more to explore. I'm sure an unmanned probe could give a perfectly accurate account of the events up close
Nothing beats a personal touch, especially when you're about to make history describing the feeding habits and/or nutrional requirements of a Supermassive Black Hole and to be able to document it at close range while you're still alive and still have a few molecules and atoms left to do so, would be a truly remarkable event...... Atta Boy
