Hubble Records Wandering Black Hole That Swallowed a Star
NASA astronomers have recorded a rare event using the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories — a tidal disruption event (TDE) involving a wandering black hole. It occurred 600 million light years from Earth and provided new insights into the behavior of black holes.
The object was spotted due to gravitational lensing — the distortion of light from distant bodies under the influence of gravity. As it approached the star, the black hole tore it apart, creating a bright accretion disk that radiated in ultraviolet and visible light.
Unlike typical black holes in the centers of galaxies, this one was located 2,600 light years from the core, where a supermassive black hole was already located. Despite their relative proximity, the two holes do not yet form a single system, but they may merge in the future.
The observable Universe is ~4.40×10²³ km, or 28,500 Megaparsecs (Mpc) across.
It expands at ~71.17 ± 0.86 km/s/Mpc.
This is a logarithmic scale conception of the observable universe
[✏️ Pablo Carlos Budassi]
Alsomitra macrocarpa has seeds which use paper-thin wings to disperse like giant gliders. The seeds, which are produced by a football-sized pod, can glide hundreds of metres across the forest.