When a black hole shreds a star, a bright flare tells the story
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 15:32
in Astronomy & Space
(Phys.org) —Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz uses computer simulations to explore the universe's most violent events, so when the first detailed observations of a star being ripped apart by a black hole were reported in 2012 (Gezari et al., Nature), he was eager to compare the data with his simulations. He was also highly skeptical of one of the published conclusions: that the disrupted star was a rare helium star.