The NEW PHYSICS of Black Hole Star Capture | Extreme Tidal Disruption Events

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If you track the motion of individual stars in the ultra-dense star cluster at the very center of the Milky Way you’ll see that they swing in sharp orbits around some vast but invisible mass—that’s the Sagittarius A* supermassive black hole. These are perilous orbits, and sometimes a star wanders just a little too close to that lurking monster, leading to its utter destruction in the spectacular phenomenon known as a tidal disruption event. We’ve never seen a TDE in the Milky Way, but we’ve seen them in distant galaxies—and we now know how to spot stellar destructions so extreme that they reveal properties of the black hole itself.

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Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by Matt Caplan, Andy Santarelli & Matt O'Dowd
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[jdrobertson]

I love that we need an “extreme” category to distinguish from boring, everyday events where a star is pulled apart.

[Phlosioneer]

I really miss the Q&A after episodes. So many good details, so many good jokes.

[iout]

The thing I found most surprising about these events is the timescale.
We all know space is unimaginably big, so whenever I think about things happening on the scale of galaxies I think "ah, well, that's going to take a thousand years to complete, " but then hearing the accretion disc for an eTDE can form in just tens of *minutes* is insane.

[jasondarland]

'This kills the star' You see, this is what sets this series apart. Concepts I understand!

[d-mark]

PBS Spacetime has 3.14 million subscribers. . Pi million. YAY for PBS Spacetime!

[Cowface]

To my disappointment, the black leather jacket from the thumbnail was not being worn during the video

[anaryl]

Perfect episode to watch whilst eating swirly ice cream.

[ollebjerkas]

"The black hole slurps up the entire spaghettified stellar noodle" 😂 Such poetry!!

[memyself]

Disappointed Matt isn’t wearing that super drip jacket in the video. Look at our dude looking all badass

[DirkDwipple]

I went to a trusty calculator. 45, 000 seconds divided by sixty seconds, divided 60 minutes equals 12.5 hours. Now that's a firework show.

[YogiMcCaw]

Another home run for PBS Spacetime! This is consistently one of the most interesting channels on YouTube. You would think after a couple of years everything would have been covered, but no-o-o-. Not only is PBS Spacetime expanding, but the rate at which it's expanding is itself increasing! I'm glad I get to see it before it gets too red-shifted!

[PhillipLangenkamp]

The subtle "This kills the star" at 1:19 made my day. A brilliant stellar-class flashback to the old memes. Bravo!

[Kelticfury]

So massive it reveals data about the black hole. Awesome.

[CarletonTorpin]

I love it when a PBS Space Time episode is sponsored by only the actual patrons.

[sogerc]

IDK why, but I find the normal TDE so beautiful.

[Joshua-byqv]

This is better than science fiction. Amazing stuff.

[NothingverseOfficial]

The light emitted from TDEs can outshine an entire galaxy, and that just overwhelms me with the sheer power of the universe.

[mrJety]

Relativistic Magneto-Hydrodynamics
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