Astronomers first recorded the unique cosmic phenomenon when a major star has experienced convergence with the supermassive black hole, while losing the outer shell. Experts predict that in the future the star will turn into a new kind of planets due to the constant diminution of the weight. Press release published on the NASA website.
The researchers obtained data using x-ray telescopes Chandra and XMM-Newton. At a distance of 250 million light years from Earth, in the galaxy GSN 069, a giant red star came too close to a supermassive black hole whose mass is comparable to 400 thousand Suns. The tidal forces of the black hole tore off the stars outer layers containing hydrogen, giving rise to a white dwarf, surrounded by a cloud of gas.
A white dwarf is left in an elliptical orbit, making a turn around the black hole every nine hours. Every time you reach the nearest point, the remnants from the outer shell of the star fall into the accretion disk and emit a flash of x-rays.
According to the prediction of the astronomers, the mass loss by the star and the emission of gravitational waves will lead to an increase of the radius of the orbit of the star and change its shape to a more round. After about a trillion years the white dwarf reaches the masses of Jupiter and turn into planetologie object.
