In this new study, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on March 24, a team of astronomers from the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) and Radboud University in the Netherlands has successfully detected such a spaghettified star in spectral absorption lines around the poles of a distant black hole.
The astronomers observed the spectral absorption lines when looking at the black hole's rotational pole.The team believes that this material is the torn star as it orbits around the black hole before disappearing inside of it.
Made of material that is drawn to but not yet swallowed up by the black hole, the disk orbits around the equator at a very high speed, emitting heat, X-rays and gamma-rays in the process.
Millions and even billions of times heavier than the sun, supermassive black holes are believed to lurk at the center of most galaxies.Stars that orbit in the central parts of galaxies might occasionally wander so close to the black holes that they get trapped by their gravity.