Scientists film a black hole as it devours a star that is "closest to Earth"
Astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered a new black hole that is closest to Earth, and were able to photograph it using advanced techniques as it "devoured" a star that was crossing in front of it.
WTP14adbjsh is located in galaxy NGC 7392, about 137 million light-years from Earth.
Scientists discovered the hole using search in the infrared range, which showed that conventional X-ray and optical surveys may miss such events because of the dust clouds they produce.
Sci Tech Daily says such an event occurs once every 10,000 years or so, when "a galaxy's center lights up as its supermassive black hole rips apart a passing star."
The researchers say, according to the site, that the black hole formed in a "young galaxy that is still forming stars," unlike the majority of black holes that occur in stable galaxies.
Scientists believe that "such cosmic events occur frequently, but researchers were missing them because of the techniques they used previously."
The name "blue" galaxies is given to "young" star-forming galaxies, and they are different from red galaxies that have stopped producing new stars.
Source : websites