#tidal disruption

Portrait of a tidally locked gas giant in a binary star system. The side that faces its primary star is mostly too hot to form clouds, so is blue via Rayleigh scattering of hydrogen & helium gas. But on the far side, which only sees the dim distant light of an orange dwarf, can form water vapor, water ice, and ammonia vapor clouds, along with various other hazes and photochemistries that are understood by specialists.

Also visible are two other gas giants, a planet even closer to the primary star with its atmosphere ablating away, and a more distant habitable-zone gas giant with two visible large moons.

A small sparsely packed rubble pile asteroid is encountering the gas giant, and is being torn apart by tidal forces.

Every year, dozens of asteroids come closer to our planet than the moon is, and yet catastrophic collisions are exceedingly rare.  Now, a new study proposes that Earth has a built-in defense system —  its intense gravitational forces — that it uses to tackle asteroid interlopers.

AT2021lwx

In our lives, we see and experience many powerful things, from Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Tornado's, a thunder storm can feel fairly powerful, as can the eyes of the person you share the first kiss with, but on a galactic scale, and not to rain on your life's parade, but the real action is in outer space.

It's a human failing that we only consider the things that directly impact on us, when we consider power, but for anybody who looks up to the sky, perspective can be a real teacher.

Until recently, the most powerful explosions were GRB's (Gamma Ray Bursts) a flash of energy far beyond any Earthly experience, thought to be created during the merger of neutron stars or the collapse of some of the largest stars, these momentary flashes can contain more energy than our Sun will emit in it's entire 10 billion years of life, and then some ! all condensed in a momentary blast.

But back in 2020 a new object was detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility in California, and the observations sat there for almost a year before finally being found by a search algorithm and named AT2021lwx.

Now Gamma Ray Bursts last seconds, Supernova can last months, but this object is still burning today, 3 years since it's discovery and it's the prolonged output of this object that has made it the most energetic, not in terms of brightness, but overall output.

But what is it ?

If it's not a gamma ray burst, and it's not a supernova, maybe it's a star tidally ripped apart by a black hole, another massively powerful event, yet again, that wouldn't have lasted this long.

The only conclusion so far, is that this is similar to a quasar, a supermassive black hole that is constantly being fed material and emitting huge amounts of energy, so much so, that it outputs more energy alone than it's entire galaxy that's powering it.

Yet, these objects flicker and don't turn on and off, while this object appeared in 2020 and doesn't flicker at all.

Still, the most likely reason is a massive body of gas being consumed by a back hole, and throwing out tremendous amounts of energy, so much so, it's become the most powerful thing ever found in our known universe.

Source :

Just some single-panel cartoons I am hoping to include in a planetarium show I hope to give next year. 

They’re meant for a part of the talk that describes how black holes isolated by themselves don’t really do much, but once they’re actively accreting matter, they become a lot more exciting. 

I found on my old computer that attempt to make up for the fact that there are no video games where I can play as a rogue black hole and tear apart entire suns with my tides by making weird black hole critters on Spore.

THROWBACK THURSDAYS–BLACK HOLE TAMER

I’ve had these drawings for a Power Point slide background sitting around from freshman in undergrad and figured might as well post them. I haven’t done a Throwback Thursday since I got followers so here we go.

This was from a time where I had yet to realize that the black holes’ mouths would be purely space-time, and so I drew them with actual physical teeth and tongues here. I also drew blood coming from the star who got tidally torn apart for some reason.

You can also see the earlier designs for Stella, Cobalt, and Rhodie here. Stella was originally a much darker yellow,  before I copped out on the whole “the Sun is actually white” thing and made her a yellowish-white. Cobalt also had granulation, as I had yet to learn that massive stars’ photospheres were radiative. Stella also is shown to blush rosy pink, when I have since realized it would be much funnier if she just got giant sunspots on her cheeks when she was aroused. (I need to get the rosy cheeks off of Rhodie in the character page someday…)

Basically the premise of this was that there is a star who is trying to be like the lion tamer who puts his head in the big cat’s mouth, except said star will do this with a black hole. The text was in the Power Point presentation, but I can give you a synopsis:

 Tamer Star: Fellow stars, starlings, and starlets! Today is a great day in galactic HISTORY! You will see for the first time in the Universe, gravity defied! I will tame this savage dark beast! 

Cobalt’s thoughts: “This better be good. Cobalt’s only got a few hundred thousand years left.”

Tamer Star: I will stick my head into the maw of this black hole, and I shall return unscathed! It will be a triumph of light over the sinister darkness!

(Black hole wimpers, in pain from its hunger pangs)

Tamer star: All right, then! HERE I JUMP INTO THE UNKNOWN!

(Tamer Star sticks his face into the black hole.)

(Other stars watch in fixated horror as the Tamer Star gets tidally disrupted and his innards splatter everywhere)

After Tamer Star is completely eaten by the black hole:

Stella: “These black hole tamer acts are sorely predictable aren’t they?”

Cobalt: *retches* Cobalt’s just gonna go home and puke his outer layers off. 

Rhodie: “I dunno what’s bothering you guys so much.”

(of course she closed her eyes the whole time so what does she know?)

(The original text had Cobalt not referring to himself in the 3rd person, and saying at the end he felt like he was going to puke his core up into a supernova. Rhodie was bragging about how since she’s a red dwarf star, she’ll never have to deal with it.

I changed it slightly because I’ve since made Cobalt’s most characteristic trait his baby-like naiveté. He entered the main sequence too early, but unlike the other O-type stars, he never quite learned how to fake actually being tough and mature. Like a baby he has trouble distinguishing himself from the rest of the world, so he has some difficulty with first person words.