Black Hole Eating Star - Enhanced
by Weston Westmoreland
Title
Black Hole Eating Star - Enhanced
Artist
Weston Westmoreland
Medium
Digital Art - Digital Art
Description
Infrared Echoes of a Black Hole Eating a Star. Enhanced.
Illustration of the glowing stream of material from a star as it is being devoured by a supermassive black hole in a tidal disruption flare.
When a star passes close enough to a black hole to be gravitationally disrupted, the stellar material gets stretched and compressed as it falls into the black hole. In the process, the gas heats up and creates a lot of optical and ultraviolet light, which destroys nearby dust and radiates dust further out. The farther dust emits infrared light. In recent years, a few dozen such flares have been discovered, but they are not well understood.
Original image and text by NASA/JPL-Caltech. Further image enhancements and post processing by Weston Westmoreland.
More Planetary & Deep Space Enhanced images at http://westonwestmoreland.com/collections/astronomy
Weston Westmoreland
Uploaded
April 20th, 2019
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