CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – Scientists have detected a black hole that’s taken a record-breaking decade to devour a star – and it’s still chewing away.
The food fest is happening in a small galaxy 1.8 billion light-years from Earth.
University of New Hampshire research scientist Dacheng (dah-CHENG) Lin said that black hole feeding frenzies have been observed since the 1990s, but they’ve lasted just a year. At 11 years and counting, this is the longest known one yet.
Lin and his team used data from orbiting X-ray telescopes to study the monstrous munching. X-ray flares erupt when a star gets swallowed by a black hole and cooked millions of degrees. Black holes clearly like their stars well done.
“We have witnessed a star’s spectacular and prolonged demise,” Lin said in a statement.