Astronomers Just Watched a Black Hole Shred a Star

By Eric Betz
Sep 26, 2019 10:45 AMNov 11, 2019 6:13 PM
Black Hole Ripping a Star
This artist’s illustration shows a black hole ripping a star into a thin stream of gas that then slams back into itself, causing a bright shock that astronomers detected earlier this year. (Credit: Illustration by Robin Dienel/Courtesy Carnegie Institution for Science)

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A NASA spacecraft built to find alien planets just spotted a star getting shredded by a black hole.

Scientists used NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to capture the unfortunate sun getting torn apart in unprecedented detail after it passed too close to a supermassive black hole in a galaxy some 375 million light-years away.

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