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    NASA gets unusually close glimpse of Black Hole Snacking on Star

    December 21, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A disk of hot gas swirls around a black hole in this illustration. The stream of gas stretching to the right is what remains of a star that was pulled apart by the black hole. A cloud of hot plasma (gas atoms with their electrons stripped away) above the black hole is known as a corona. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    Recent observations of a black hole devouring a wandering star may help scientists understand more complex black hole feeding behaviors.

    Multiple NASA telescopes recently observed a massive black hole tearing apart an unlucky star that wandered too close. Located about 250 million light-years from Earth in the center of another galaxy, it was the fifth-closest example of a black hole destroying a star ever observed.

    Once the star had been thoroughly ruptured by the black h...

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