Astronomers observed a supermassive black hole alternately consuming stars.

In 2019, astronomers observed a star that ventured too close to the central supermassive black hole of a distant galaxy and was stretched and torn apart by its gravity — this process is known as spaghettification. The remnants of the star subsequently formed an accretion disk around the black hole.

The discovery, the article for which has been accepted for publication in the journal Nature and published on the preprint server arXiv.org, was made using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other astronomical instruments. Previously, researchers documented numerous instances where an object approaching a supermassive black hole was torn apart, resulting in a burst of light — known as a tidal disruption event.

Using data obtained from Hubble, an international team of astronomers found that the accretion disk had increased in size. This indicates that the remnants of the destroyed star formed an expanding disk of stellar material around the black hole. Consequently, an object in orbit around this "cosmic monster" (another star or a compact object) periodically passes through this disk, triggering X-ray outbursts observed by Chandra.

It was previously thought that these bursts could be caused by objects crossing the accretion disks of supermassive black holes; however, direct evidence for this connection was lacking. The results of the new study provided the first compelling confirmation of this hypothesis.

The researchers noted that the bursts recorded by Chandra occurred every 48 hours. This corresponds to the orbital period of the object interacting with the accretion disk. The findings showed that after the star's destruction and the formation of the accretion disk, the interaction between the black hole and the orbiting object led to regular X-ray flares.

This discovery allows astronomers to better understand the nature of the observed phenomena. The results of further research will aid in unraveling the mechanisms of accretion around supermassive black holes and their influence on galaxy evolution.