7th April 2011 Star Ripped Apart by Black Hole part II

More than a week after the initial sightingg, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade from its location. This is unusual because normally nothing this bright, long-lasting and variable has been witnessed before. Usually, gamma-ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, but flaring emission from these never lasts more than a few hours.

It is thought that it appears so bright because of the angle we are viewing it from, like looking at the barrel of a gun.  What we are seeing is far brighter than the galaxy containing it.

When the star was ripped apart, 10²⁷s of tons of ionized gas burst out. The material formed a disk of plasma, called an accretion disk, around the black hole. Magnetic fields, friction, and turbulence superheated the plasma. When this happened, twin beams of matter and energy blasted out from the poles of the disk, away from the black hole and one of these is what we are looking at head on. These beams shone with the light of a trillion Suns.


The images below are from NASA.

Images from Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical (white, purple) and X-ray telescopes (yellow and red) were combined in this view of GRB 110328A. The blast was detected only in X-rays, which were collected over a 3.4-hour period on March 28. Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler

GRB 110328A has repeatedly flared in the days following its discovery by Swift. This plot shows the brightness changes recorded by Swift's X-ray Telescope. Credit: NASA/Swift/Penn State/J. Kennea

Bad Astronomy: Followup on the star-torn apart by a black hole-Hubble picture

NASA press release & link to source of photos

Chandra Image & Info