June 16, 2011 - West Hawaii Today
Astronomers were able to watch a black hole consume a star, thanks to Mauna Kea's Gemini North telescope.
NASA's Swift telescope first detected light from the incident, as a beam of light crossed 3.8 billion light years of space. A team of astronomers using Gemini North then rushed to make more observations.
"It is rare for stars to get very close to the black holes in the centers of galaxies, but when they do, they will always come off second best," University of Leicester Professor Nial Tanvir said.
The scientists' research was published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science.
Black holes consuming stars is probably fairly common, Gemini spokesman Peter Michaud said.
"What's interesting is we're actually watching a star being consumed," he said. "(Scientists) can see brightness concentrations where whole clumps of materials are being consumed."
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