Topic
Tidal disruption events (TDEs) occur when a star passes too close to a black hole and is torn apart by tidal forces, with the debris partly accreted and emitted as a bright flare. Astronomers study TDEs to probe black hole spin, accretion physics, and the chemical composition of disrupted stars.
Astronomers led by Itai Sfaradi found a star torn apart by a massive black hole 1.08 kiloparsecs from its host galaxy's center. The team estimates its mass at roughly 1 million to 10 million suns and weighs two explanations for the offset.
Reality
Curtin-led astronomers report that black holes differing in mass by millions of times appear to launch jets at the same stage of their feeding cycle. If the pattern holds, delayed radio flares after stellar disruptions could be timed from the feeding rate.
Reality
A Syracuse-led team says a star that arrives already rotating fast cannot be spun up much further, which lets each weaker pass finally look weaker. Four of about ten known repeaters fade.
Reality
Andrew Mummery and Adelle Goodwin report that late radio jets in ten star-shredding events switched on as the feeding rate fell to about 2% of the Eddington limit, the threshold already known from Milky Way black holes.
Reality
Adelle Goodwin and Andrew Mummery modelled ten stars torn apart by supermassive black holes and found the late radio jets turning on at the same accretion threshold already known from much smaller black holes in our galaxy.
Reality
Astronomers report helium moving unexpectedly fast long after AT2024wpp peaked, which they read as surviving stellar structure. That complicates the tidy version of tidal disruption.
Reality