Black hole tidal disruption event (TDE)

3D ModelNoAI

A tidal disruption event (TDE) occurs when a star falls victim to the immense gravitational forces of a supermassive black hole. The artist’s illustration presented here depicts the physical destruction of the star as it is torn apart by the black hole’s colossal gravitational pull.

Current knowledge suggests that when a star is in a parabolic orbit around a black hole, a portion of its mass can be gravitationally captured in an accretion disk that surrounds the black hole. This process generates a short-lived burst of electromagnetic radiation as matter in the disk is consumed by the black hole. TDEs are an inevitable consequence of the activity of massive black holes concealed within the nuclei of galaxies. Thus, the observation of flares of radiation arising from the accretion of stellar debris could serve as a distinctive signal for the presence of a dormant black hole at the center of a galaxy.