(Image credit: Legacy Surveys / D. Lang (Perimeter Institute) / INAF / F. Onori)
Astronomers have carefully studied a unique and extremely destructive cosmic phenomenon that occurred when an unfortunate star wandered too close to a supermassive black hole. The research team hopes the work can provide more insight into how such events, called 'tidal disruption events' or 'TDEs', affect the evolution of their host galaxies.
These violent battles between stars and the powerful gravity of black holes, which can weigh millions or even billions of solar masses, result in stars being destroyed and consumed by the black holes. This cosmic cannibalism produces flashes of light that can outshine the combined light of all the stars in the TDE’s host galaxy, signaling to scientists that a stellar demise has occurred.
This TDE, designated AT 2022wtn, occurred in a galaxy about 700 million light years away. This galaxy is in the early stages of merging with one of its galactic neighbors.
The galaxy in which the TDE occurred, designated SDSSJ232323.79+104107.7, is the smaller of the two galaxies involved in the merger. The other galaxy involved is at least ten times larger than SDSSJ232323.79+104107.7.
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