Astronomers may have witnessed a star torn apart by a black hole

On March 28, 2011, NASA ’s Swift
satellite caught a flash of high-energy
X -rays pouring in from deep space.
Swift is designed to do this , and since
its launch in 2004 has seen hundreds
of such things , usually caused by stars
exploding at the ends of their lives .
But this time was hardly " usual ". It
didn ’t see a star exploding as a
supernova , it saw a star literally
getting torn apart as it fell too close
to a black hole!
The event was labeled GRB 110328 A –
a gamma- ray burst seen in 2011 , third
month (March ) on the 28 th day ( in
other words , last week) . Normal
gamma- ray bursts are when
supermassive stars collapse ( or ultra -
dense neutron stars merge ) to form a
black hole . This releases a titanic
amount of energy , which can be seen
clear across the Universe .
And those last two characteristics are
certainly true of GRB 110328 A ; it’ s
nearly four billion light years away* ,
and the ferocity of its final moments is
not to be underestimated : it peaked at
a solid one trillion times the Sun’s
brightness!
Yegads . I’m rather glad this happened
so far away . That’s not the kind of
thing I ’d like to see up close .

blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/05/astronomer​s-may-have-witnessed-a-star-torn-apart-by-a-black-hole/