Using radio telescopes mainly in New Mexico and South Africa, scientists are observing the black hole at the center of a galaxy very far from our Milky Way, as it continues to spew fast-moving material after it shattered and swallowed a star that made the mistake of getting too close.
What makes this unusual is the extreme difficulty and duration of the absorption process that the black hole experiences after swallowing the celestial object .
The remaining material from the star only began escaping into space two years after it was torn apart into its constituent gases by the black hole's gravitational forces. However, this material has been continuously escaping into space for six years, a longer period than any other time this phenomenon has been observed.
“The steady increase in the brightness of this source is unprecedented,” said Yvette Sindis, an astrophysicist at Oregon State University. “It is now about 50 times brighter than it was when it was first discovered, and is now incredibly bright for an object appearing in radio waves.”
"This has been going on for years, and there is no indication that it will stop. This is very unusual," added Sindis, the lead author of the study published Thursday in the Astrophysical Journal.
Black holes are objects of immense density and gravity so strong that even light cannot escape them.
This black hole is located approximately 665 million light-years from Earth . A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, equivalent to 9.5 trillion kilometers.
The black hole has a mass of about 5 million times that of the Sun. This makes it roughly similar to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, which has a mass of about 4 million times that of the Sun.
The doomed star was a red dwarf with a mass about one-tenth the mass of the sun .
The question now is, how long will the release of these materials continue to intensify?
Researchers predict it could peak later this year or next year.
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