Hubble Animation Shows Star Torn Apart by Black Hole 2.7 Billion Light Years Away

Image: Hubblesite.org

May 2, 2012 - Hubblesite.org today released an animation recreation of a star being destroyed by a black hole. "This computer simulation," says Hubblesite, "shows a star being shredded by the gravity of a massive black hole." (continued below the video)

"Some of the stellar debris falls into the black hole and some of it is ejected into space at high speeds," says Hubblesite. "The areas in white are regions of highest density, with progressively redder colors corresponding to lower-density regions.

The blue dot pinpoints the black hole's location. The elapsed time corresponds to the amount of time it takes for a Sun-like star to be ripped apart by a black hole a million times more massive than the Sun."


Credit: NASA, S. Gezari (The Johns Hopkins University), and J. Guillochon (University of California, Santa Cruz) Hat tip to TheBadAstronomer.