Yikes! What a way to go. One wonders if there were any planets around that star and if they may have contained life. We’ll never know.
Black hole eats star, producing bright gamma-ray flash
By Robert Sanders, Media Relations UC Berkeley | June 16, 2011
BERKELEY —
A bright flash of gamma rays observed March 28 by the Swift satellite may have been the death rattle of a star falling into a massive black hole and being ripped apart, according to a team of astronomers led by the University of California, Berkeley.
When the Swift Gamma Burst Mission spacecraft first detected the flash within the constellation Draco, astronomers thought it was a gamma-ray burst from a collapsing star and designated it GRB 110328A. On March 31, however, UC Berkeley’s Joshua Bloom sent out an email circular suggesting that it wasn’t a typical gamma-ray burst at all, but a high-energy jet produced as a star about the size of our sun was shredded by a black hole a million times more massive.
Careful analysis of the Swift data and subsequent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory confirmed Bloom’s initial insight. The details are published online today (Thursday, June 16) in Science Express, a rapid publication arm of the journal Science.
“This is truly different from any explosive event we have seen before,” Bloom said.
What made this gamma-ray flare, called Sw 1644+57, stand out from a typical burst were its long duration and the fact that it appeared to come from the center of a galaxy nearly 4 billion light years away. Since most, if not all, galaxies are thought to contain a massive black hole at the center, a long-duration burst could conceivably come from the relatively slow tidal disruption of an infalling star, the astronomers said.
“This burst produced a tremendous amount of energy over a fairly long period of time, and the event is still going on more than two and a half months later,” said Bloom, an associate professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley. “That’s because as the black hole rips the star apart, the mass swirls around like water going down a drain, and this swirling process releases a lot of energy.”
Bloom and his colleagues propose in their Science Express paper that some 10 percent of the infalling star’s mass is turned into energy and irradiated as X-rays from the swirling accretion disk or as X-rays and higher energy gamma rays from a relativistic jet that punches out along the rotation axis. Earth just happened to be in the eye of the gamma-ray beam.
Bloom draws an analogy with a quasar, which is a distant galaxy that emits bright, high-energy light because of the massive black hole at its center gobbling up stars and sending out a jet of X-rays along its rotation axis. Observed from an angle, these bright emissions are called active galactic nuclei, but when observed down the axis of the jet, they’re referred to as blazars.
“We argue that this must be jetted material and we’re looking down the barrel,” he said. “Jetting is a common phenomenon when you have accretion disks, and black holes actually prefer to make jets.”
Looking back at previous observations of this region of the cosmos, Bloom and his team could find no evidence of X-ray or gamma-ray emissions, leading them to conclude that this is a “one-off event,” Bloom said.
“Here, you have a black hole sitting quiescently, not gobbling up matter, and all of a sudden something sets it off,” Bloom said. “This could happen in our own galaxy, where a black hole sits at the center living in quiescence, and occasionally burbles or hiccups as it swallows a little bit of gas. From a distance, it would appear dormant, until a star randomly wanders too close and is shredded.”
Probable tidal disruptions of a star by a massive black hole have previously been seen at X-ray, ultraviolet and optical wavelengths, but never before at gamma-ray energies. Such random events, especially looking down the barrel of a jet, are incredibly rare, “probably once in 100 million years in any given galaxy,” said Bloom. “I would be surprised if we saw another one of these anywhere in the sky in the next decade.”
The astronomers suspect that the gamma-ray emissions began March 24 or 25 in the uncatalogued galaxy at a redshift of 0.3534, putting it at a distance of about 3.8 billion light years. Bloom and his colleagues estimate that the emissions will fade over the next year.
“We think this event was detected around the time it was as bright as it will ever be, and if it’s really a star being ripped apart by a massive black hole, we predict that it will never happen again in this galaxy,” he said.
Bloom’s colleagues include UC Berkeley theoretical physicist Elliot Quataert, who models the production of jets from accretion disks, and UC Berkeley astronomers S. Bradley Cenko, Daniel A. Perley, Nathaniel R. Butler, Linda E. Strubbe, Antonino Cucchiara, Geoffrey C. Bower and Adam N. Morgan; Dimitrios Giannios and Brian D. Metzger of Princeton University; Andrew J. Levan of the University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom; Nial R. Tanvir, Paul T. O’ Brien, Andrew R. King and Sergei Nayakshin of the University of Leicester in the U.K.; Fabio De Colle, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz and James Guillochon of UC Santa Cruz; William H. Lee of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México in Mexico City; Andrew S. Fruchter of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.; and Alexander J. van der Horst of the Universities Space Research Association in Huntsville, Ala.
Levan is first author of the companion Science Express paper, and leader of the Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope observation team.
Bloom and his laboratory are supported by grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Would that one star’s destruction sterilized the entire galaxy? If not, how big an area would be impacted?
It must be vast.
hunter,
Almost all the energy is directed in a thin line emanating from the accretion disk, as the article explains. The reason we can see it so clearly is because the earth is in a direct line of sight of that energy. If the disk had been tilted even slightly away from the earth, it wouldn’t be called a blazar.
How does a black hole grow?
The answer is that NO ONE KNOWS if or how what goes on inside of a black hole, as no information can come out of same, by definition, if one excludes Hawking radiation which is theoretical particle based physics, and not observed to my knowledge. This is not science fiction and does not have anything really to do with the big bang but the nature of space-time as defined by Eistein’s relativity. Time does slow down in the presence of gravity, and has actually been tested and observed in high altitude situations with atomic clocks. Theoretically the event horrizon will grow as mass enters but again no one knows. Space time theoretically ceases to exist at a singularity due the gravity squashing it out of existence so to speak, making frame of reference of little consequece. Not that there may not be a deeper physical world yet to be defined, beyond relativity, at higher energy levels, which is presently postulated but not proven. In the mean time relativity has passed all the observational tests thrown at it and is much more an observationally proven science than climate “science” which is much more “science fiction” particulary as practiced today.
I posed this question in the event there was some new theory out there of which one of our astute posters might be aware. Since in particle physics there is some notion that observation can actually cause a wave function to collapse, one might consider if similar events might occur relative to space time in a black hole with the consciousness of an aware being having an effect upon space-time. Perhaps all the material world is but a figment of our consciousness which would not exist without our being here to observe it.
Fixed my spelling.
How does a black hole grow?
The answer is that NO ONE KNOWS if or how what goes on inside of a black hole, as no information can come out of same, by definition, if one excludes Hawking radiation which is theoretical particle based physics, and not observed to my knowledge. This is not science fiction and does not have anything really to do with the big bang but the nature of space-time as defined by Einstein’s relativity. Time does slow down in the presence of gravity, and has actually been tested and observed in high altitude situations with atomic clocks. Theoretically the event horizon will grow as mass enters but again no one knows. Space time theoretically ceases to exist at a singularity due the gravity squashing it out of existence so to speak, making frame of reference of little consequence. Not that there may not be a deeper physical world yet to be defined, beyond relativity, at higher energy levels, which is presently postulated but not proven. In the mean time relativity has passed all the observational tests thrown at it and is much more an observationally proven science than climate “science” which is much more “science fiction” particularly as practiced today.
I posed this question in the event there was some new theory out there of which one of our astute posters might be aware. Since in particle physics there is some notion that observation can actually cause a wave function to collapse, one might consider if similar events might occur relative to space time in a black hole with the consciousness of an aware being having an effect upon space-time. Perhaps all the material world is but a figment of our consciousness which would not exist without our being here to observe it.
Wil says:
June 17, 2011 at 3:51 pm
“Re: “a galactic collision such as is expected between the Milky Way and Andromeda in a few billion years.” Now I’m in my area – in actuality the Andromeda and Milky Way will run THROUGH each other a number of times”
Hi Wil!
You have a very large comfort zone (“Now I’m in my area….”)! };>)
You’ve stirred my thoughts… and recollections of some sci-fi novels I’ve read (ex: “Sailing Bright Eternity” – Gregory Benford). Can you offer your perspectives on the following?
Assuming both Andromeda and Milky Way have massive black holes at their centers when they ‘collide’, what happens when 2 massive black holes orbit, spiral in, and their individual event horizons intersect?
Matter ‘caught’ between the approaching event horizons could locate in a stable ‘LaGrange’ point?
The LaGrange would be stable locally but with increasingly steep gravitational gradients adjacent to the LaGrange?
Infalling matter in either black hole could cause gravitational ‘tides’ at the LaGrange points?
Local reference frame in the LaGrange point VS a galactic external reference frame means extreme time dilation for the LaGrange residents?
Would there be a narrow, low gravitational path into and out of the LaGrange point, provided it was not already inside either event horizon?
No escape possible, if the LaGrange point becomes enveloped by either event horizon… or the combined event horizon of both?
What shape would the combined event horizon have, as the 2 event horizons intersected? Would it look like 2 obs slowly merging, a slowly collapsing ‘figure eight’ ( 8 )?
Would we see regular cyclic flashes of gamma ray bursts, matching the orbital period of the circling black holes, as the individual event horizons approached and merged ?
Any conjectures on your part would be appreciated! Thanks!
I have long pondered over Jim G’s question. No observer could have ever observed matter crossing the event horizon since clocks run slowly near and come to a complete stop at the event horizon. Thus all black holes must have been fully formed at time zero, at the beginning of the big bang, since their masses are fixed for all time afterward.
What do you think?
As a few others here have noted, this black hole thing is pretty speculative, and is not really even supported scientifically at best.
As a few said as you get so close to the thing, supposedly the gravity so great that no light can escape it, well that’s fine and dandy. However, let’s get far enough away from it so we reach the point where light passing by does escape. This being the case we would see tons of multiple reflections (images) of the stars and other objects from all around that area being bent towards our point of view. It should produce a effect much like a glass ball bending light. So this supposedly such huge gravitational ability exists without any bending of light then? I mean as you move away from such a large gravity then there should be ample amounts of places and objects far enough away from a black hole in which we see light passing by and being bent.
I mean, such great force to swallow light is going to do a heck of a lot of bending just outside of that supposed area in which light cannot pass by. The more one reasons this out the more how absolutely absurd and ridiculous becomes this black hole idea. Like CAGW, the more it repeated, the more the stupid science community goes along with this garbage.
What exists on the “other side” of a black hole? Or for that matter, given what we think we know at present about the universe – that it is finite – what lies beyond the edge? Something to ponder that has been stated before: “In the absence of Reality, Probability rules”. Since “Reality” is the observable universe (as far as we can discern), then logically what lies beyond must be Probability. Not the Probability of baseball statistics, or Bayes, but rather a Cosmic Probability.
I think the postulated collision of our galaxy with Andromeda would not be so disasterous; the two galaxies would, effectively, pass through each other, certainly causing distortions of the classic disc, but actual stellar collisions would be rare (I believe).
Your headline implies that the hypothesis of a group of astrophysicists is a ‘fact’. This is exactly the kind of thing the MSM does with some of the climate nonsense hypotheses they report – simply sensationalism. I am disappointed that this kind of thing appears here on a site I have always respected.
Let me dissect what this article has presented.
1. Black holes.
2. Red Shifts.
3. Galaxies present other than our own.
4. Star destroyed by its close proximity to a black hole.
5. Ability to view the event.
There are those that agree with some or most of these statements, while others disagree with these statements, and some that don’t know where they stand on these issues.
I trust in facts.
And facts support these events.
Just like CAGW is nothing more than a theory, those that would call this event ‘sci-fi’, do so because of some theory, that denies these facts.
And last I checked, that theory isn’t really working out all that well.
Malcolm Miller:
I am disappointed that this kind of thing appears here on a site I have always respected.
Relax…
The June 16th Berkeley article is only a re-run of the NASA 7th April press release…
So good news really does travel fast – NOT…
And besides NASA press releases are always good for a belly laugh…
I think Anthony meant to tag this thing as another Friday Funny.
For more information please read the Daily Telegraph article:
Dan Dare: Where Dan dares, boffins follow
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3672893/Dan-Dare-Where-Dan-dares-boffins-follow.html
or visit the BBC Comics Britannia gallery:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/gallery/comicsbritannia/images/6.jpg
I am disappointed at the level of cynicism based on ignorance expressed towards this astrophysics article. The damage that AGW proponents have done towards the public’s attitude to real physics and science is huge. AGW folks hide their modeling code and data, most other sciences do not (maybe biochemists are circumspect because of patent $ competition; I’m not sure).
Most readers here are too young to have lived through the debates in the 60s over Big Bang vs Steady State universe. The issue was resolved when actual data from observations revealed to anyone doing the observations that the BB theory was the better, more accurate description for the universe we observe. That’s how science works. State a hypothethis and then look for experimental data that can falsify it. The Steady State got falsified. Bigtime. So we’re left with the BB as the best explanation of the universe that we have to date. Time has not ended and further resuts wil give us a more accurate description.
Black Holes are a complete fiction, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A BLACK HOLE,
THEY DO NOT EXIST IN REALITY ! They are a complete mathematical fiction and do not exist in the real world.
I know a lot of people are in a big huff about the word “may” appearing in a scientific article, but I (for one) am not completely insulted by someone using words that show some degree of uncertainty provided that the author of the paper isn’t asking me to change my lifestyle dramatically back to a stone age existence, or send all of my money to a huge international organization with no real oversight… yeah, theoretical physicists can say may, because they’re articles aren’t being strewn with recriminations against humanity, and dire warnings if we don’t do what they say… after that “may”.
philw1776 says: The damage that AGW proponents have done towards the public’s attitude to real physics and science is huge.
The CAGW Settled Science has proved to be a step too far for Post-Normal Science.
The Climategate emails has proved to be where the Peer Review Cabal finally met their Waterloo.
The Blogsphere is driving the nails into the coffin of Post-Normal Propaganda.
The IPCC is killing the goose that lays the golden egg for Post-Normal NGOs.
RIP Post-Normal Science.
****
lars says:
June 18, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Black Holes are a complete fiction, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A BLACK HOLE,
THEY DO NOT EXIST IN REALITY ! They are a complete mathematical fiction and do not exist in the real world.
*****
Huh??? So what has the gravity of 4 million solar masses in the center of the Milky Way, but is optically invisible (but shows periodic X-ray bursts)? Stars rapidly & closely orbiting it (of mere solar mass) are clearly visible in the photos. Something 4 million times the mass of a star can hide there, but very close, single solar-mass stars can’t???
I don’t expect a cognitive response.
beng says:
June 19, 2011 at 7:30 am (Edit)
****
lars says:
June 18, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Black Holes are a complete fiction, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A BLACK HOLE,
THEY DO NOT EXIST IN REALITY ! They are a complete mathematical fiction and do not exist in the real world.
*****
Huh??? So what has the gravity of 4 million solar masses in the center of the Milky Way, but is optically invisible (but shows periodic X-ray bursts)? Stars rapidly & closely orbiting it (of mere solar mass) are clearly visible in the photos. Something 4 million times the mass of a star can hide there, but very close, single solar-mass stars can’t???
I don’t expect a cognitive response.
Have you got some links to these photos?
Kip Hansen says:
June 17, 2011 at 4:38 pm
ClimateForAll: I suspect that tallbloke is referring to something similar my reaction –> these astronomers and astro-physicists always speak as if these objects — quasars, black holes, etc — were actual real things that we have ‘personal’ knowledge of.
……
In the 1700′s European scientists would sit around in their royal societies and discuss sea monsters, cyclopes, and give learned explanations for beasts that we now know are mythical or give lectures denying the existence of things we now know to be real. I’m not all that sure that astro-physicists haven’t fallen into the same intellectual trap.
Spot on Kip. Black holes are the logical consequence of an illogical gravity only theory of cosmos. I don’t go along with everything the E.U. folks hypothesise, but they got that right I think.
PhilJourdan says:
June 17, 2011 at 1:50 pm
ClimateForAll says:
June 17, 2011 at 12:27 pm
@tallbloke
What part of the discovery by NASA seems like a plot for a sci fi movie?
You have peaked my curiosity.
I cannot speak for Tallbloke, but the one that came to mind when I read the article elsewhere was “The Doomsday machine”. It is about a giant cigar that eats planets.
“”I read of one planet off in the seventh dimension that got used as a ball in a game of intergallactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole, killed ten billion people.”
– Douglas Adams –
The Steady State got falsified. Bigtime. So we’re left with the BB as the best explanation of the universe that we have to date
Well, it only something that had to be cooked up real quick and sold since the steady state could not stand up to scrutiny. If I walk into a room and observe a light candle, I can be quite assured that the candle could not have been burning forever since it has a limited fuel supply and is burning out.
And with the understanding of stars being tanks of fuel burning up their fuel via fusion, it becomes quite clear those stars could not have been there forever and thus no steady state universe. Remember, the science and observations can only be analyzed with our intellects and the correct use of reason (philosophy).
There is no science experiment that proves 2 = 2, but only our ability to determine self-evident truths. All math proofs rely on this concept of self-evident truths. So, if you do not have correct reason (philosophy), then you cannot have science and you will not be able to make heads or tails of anything you observe since you cannot apply CORRECT reason and logic to conclude anything of value from those observations.
When we apply reason and logic to BB theory, then we find BB fails to address entropy. BB fails to address how water (or energy) can flow up hill. Those stars (or even water) have energy that is flowing downhill. Rocks, water, or suns cannot reverse this process of using up their energy. In fact there are ZERO observations in nature to support that energy turns into matter.
Things get even worse for BB when you ask what was that blob of matter doing 50, or 100 years before it decided to go bang? I mean, really, some sleeping singularity was sitting there, and “one day” decided to wake up? What caused that silly thing to wake up all of a sudden? I mean, was it sitting there for billions of years? Then “all of” a sudden it decides to wake up? The problem here is BB attempts to throw cause under the rug. We are now to believe that something is supposed to occur without a cause! (too funny!)
In effect, we are being asked to believe that a rock can move itself. Objects, such as rocks or anything cannot move themselves; there has to be something else that causes something to move. Objects cannot and do not move themselves, yet BB asks us to accept this clear contradiction in truth. Or BB simply desires to ignore that something is able to move without a cause for that movement.
So while I can agree that BB theory is better than steady state, both theories cannot stand up to logic and reason. BB really is a Hodge podge of poorly put together ideas that when held under scrutiny of reason becomes full of holes like Swiss cheese.
I have not entered here, because of the low level of scientific literacy display by the commenters. God help us if this is the level of that part of the general public who claim they know anything about science..
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 19, 2011 at 1:30 pm
I have not entered here, because of the low level of scientific literacy display by the commenters. God help us if this is the level of that part of the general public who claim they know anything about science..
============
LOL, but how can you say that when even the “experts” are only guessing!
u.k.(us) says:
June 19, 2011 at 1:51 pm
LOL, but how can you say that when even the “experts” are only guessing!
The ‘experts’ are not guessing when it comes to BB, general relativity, black holes. All this is precision science.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 19, 2011 at 1:56 pm
“The ‘experts’ are not guessing when it comes to BB, general relativity, black holes. All this is precision science.”
=======
Thanks Leif, I just thought your comment was funny.
I was referring to the gamma ray “flash”, when I called them guesses.
What happens when black holes combine ?
The ‘experts’ are not guessing when it comes to BB, general relativity, black holes.
All this is precision science.
I love precision pantomimes:
Dick Whittington: The universe is going to spontaneously explode in a Big Bang.
Audience: Oh No It Isn’t.
Dick Whittington: Perhaps I can save the universe if I become Lord Mayor.
Audience: Oh No You Can’t.
Dick Whittington: Oh Yes I can! With my dark matter black cat.
Audience: Oh No You Can’t.
Dick Whittington: By the way – have you seen my dark matter black cat?
Audience: He’s behind you!
Dick Whittington: Oh No he’s not.
Audience: Oh Yes he is.
Dick Whittington: Oh No he’s not. That’s a black hole behind me.
Audience: Oh No It Isn’t.
Dick Whittington: Oh Yes it is. I can prove it! So there!
Audience: Oh No You Can’t.
Dick Whittington: Oh Yes I can. It says so here in this peer reviewed article.
Black Cat: Oh no you can’t. I am just an actor dressed up as a black cat.
Close curtains