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Black Hole Caught Eating a Star

Doesn’t matter whether you were naughty or nice, these cosmic matter consuming behemoths will still eat just about everything from stars to whole galaxies, and hey even you if you wandered too close. Just look at how it makes an example of this unfortunate star in this artist’s rendition.

Imaged Above: A star gets ripped to shreds as it falls into a supermassive black hole in an illustration. Illustration Courtesy: Mark A. Garlick, University of Warwick

A huge “belch” of radiation from a supermassive black hole indicates that the cosmic monster recently devoured a star, scientists say.

Earlier this year astronomers spied a burst of high-energy gamma rays emanating from the center of a dwarf galaxy 3.8 billion light-years away. The odd flash, dubbed Sw 1644+57, is one is the brightest and longest gamma ray bursts (GRBs) yet seen. Needed help looking for a bright enough star for your Christmas tree? Try this on for size:

In visible light and infrared wavelengths, the burst is as bright as a hundred billion suns.

(via loveyourchaos)