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Black hole is caught tearing a star apart

From Times Staff and Wire Reports

A giant black hole has been spotted guzzling a star in a galaxy 4 billion light-years away in the Bootes constellation, according to scientists using the Galaxy Evolution Explorer orbiting telescope. “Only once every 10,000 years will a star pass close enough to a [galaxy’s] central black hole to be ripped apart and swallowed in this manner,” said Suvi Gezari of Caltech, lead author of the paper in the Dec. 10 Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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