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A study led by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) has captured the explosive interaction between a black hole and a nearby massive star (blue), as depicted in this artist's conception. As the separation between the star and the black hole decreased, the black hole's intense gravity pulled gas and dust off of the star into a disk. Before the star was able to swallow the black hole, gravitational stress from the black hole triggered the star's explosion. Collisions between the stellar explosion and shells of material from earlier interactions located above and below the disk powered a dramatic re-brightening event. This artist’s graphic shows the massive star and black hole before the supernova explosion, when the star’s shape is stretched by gravitational forces from the black hole.
Credit: Melissa Weiss/CfA