A donut-shaped star

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a star that has taken on a donut or ring shape, as a prelude to its destruction.

The culprit behind the warping and destruction of that star is a black hole, a concentration of matter so large that the resulting gravitational field is capable of trapping anything that gets close enough, including light. Since not even light can escape from a black hole, it always appears black. The presence of a black hole can be deduced from the influence that it exerts on its surroundings.

When a star passes too close to a black hole, the black hole can pull it out of shape and tear it apart, then gobble up much of that material.

Some astronomers have analyzed images captured by Hubble, NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency) and have been able to recognize in them a star with the aforementioned donut shape and that process of deformation and destruction at the hands of a black hole.

The event, cataloged as AT2022dsb, occurred almost 300 million light-years from Earth, specifically in the nucleus of the galaxy ESO 583-G004.

The star, torn apart by the black hole, becomes donut-shaped and revolves around the hole. The matter of the star will fall into the hole. (Illustration: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI))

The research has been carried out by Emily Engelthaler’s team, from the Center for Astrophysics (CfA), dependent on Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institute, all of these entities in the United States.

Only a hundred cases have been observed so far of stars being torn apart and engulfed by black holes. It is not easy to capture cases of this type because the destruction process is very short. (Font: NCYT by Amazings)