Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Disruption
In 2019, astronomers on earth witnessed an astonishing thing: a tidal disruption event (TDE), a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy gradually munching on a star that wandered too close and fell through its semi-permeable, voracious maw. Scientists call these "Tidal Disruption Events" (or TDEs) since the black hole's gravity exerts a stronger pull on the closer side of the star than on the farther side, creating a tidal force large enough to pull the star apart. TDEs are enormously energetic events, each producing a short-lived burst of high energy X-ray and other types of radiation equivalent to about 100 supernovae. The illustration above represents a TDE, showing a star being pulled apart by a central supermassive black hole in some distant galaxy, leaving behind a trail of starstuff which will eventually be swallowed by the black hole at the center of the illustration. Monitoring the sky for luminous, brief outbursts in the optical and X-ray bands is key to finding TDEs. Understanding how frequently TDES occur is important to understanding how black holes grow and evolve, and how supermassive black holes are formed.
Published: May 4, 2026
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Page Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran
Last modified Monday, 04-May-2026 13:02:08 EDT