超大质量黑洞都以同样的方式进食，但改变了它们的“情绪光照”

超大质量黑洞都以同样的方式进食，但改变了它们的“情绪光照”

At the center of almost every galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole. Some are very active, constantly feeding on materials, while others are quiet and only occasionally snack on the poor unfortunate stars that end up too close to them.

几乎每个星系的中心都有一个超大质量黑洞。一些非常活跃，不断地以物质为食，而另一些很安静，只是偶尔地以可怜的不幸的恒星为食，因为它们离自己太近了。

Alfredo Carpineti

The latter types have been at the center of a mystery. When stars are being destroyed and eaten by a black hole, they emit either visible light or X-rays, but never both, so astronomers wondered if they were observing two different dining styles. In a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers write that they believe this difference in “mood lighting”, as they call it, is the result of us observing two different moments during the black hole feast.

后者一直是一个谜的中心。当恒星被黑洞摧毁并吞噬时，它们会发出可见光或x射线，但不会同时发出，所以天文学家怀疑他们观察到了两种不同的吞噬方式。在《天体物理学杂志》发表的一项新研究中，研究人员写道，他们认为这种所谓的“情绪光照”差异，是我们在黑洞盛宴期间观察两个不同时刻的结果。

Captured stars are stretched into long strings, as the intense gravity pulls them apart in what it is technically known as a tidal disruption event. The material stretches all the way around the black hole and smacks back into itself. The team, led by Peter Jonker from SRON and Radboud University, found that previous events that emitted visible light were detectable in X-rays after a few years.

被捕获的恒星被拉伸成长串，因为强烈的重力将它们分开，这在技术上被称为潮汐干扰事件。这种物质一直围绕着黑洞延伸，然后弹回黑洞。由来自SRON和Radboud大学的Peter Jonker领导的研究小组发现，之前发射可见光的事件在几年后可以用x射线探测到。

The team has two possible explanations for the different light emissions. In the first one, the researchers suggest that as the material collides with itself, it emits visible light and afterward, as it gets closer to the black hole, it starts glowing in X-rays. The second suggestion is that both visible light and X-rays are emitted at the same time, but the collision produces a cloud of material that absorbs the X-rays. So only after that cloud disperses do the X-rays become visible.

研究小组对不同的光辐射有两种可能的解释。在第一个实验中，研究人员提出，当物质与自身发生碰撞时，它会发出可见光，随后，当它靠近黑洞时，就会发出x射线。第二种说法是，可见光和x射线同时发射，但碰撞产生的物质云吸收了x射线。所以只有在云层消散后，x射线才会显现出来。

This work has some interesting consequences. The study of the X-ray emission from tidal disruption events can provide independent confirmation that black holes really do spin themselves. That’s because there is a connection between the X-rays and the rotation of the black hole.

这项工作产生了一些有趣的结果。对潮汐扰动事件的x射线辐射的研究可以提供独立的证据，证明黑洞确实会自旋。这是因为x射线和黑洞的旋转之间存在联系。

Another important fact is that a recently launched X-ray observatory, eROSITA, will soon be able to put these hypotheses to the test. In the paper, the team states that up to 990 of these tidal disruption events might be seen every year by this new telescope.

另一个重要的事实是，最近发射的x射线天文台eROSITA不久将能够对这些假说进行检验。在这篇论文中，研究小组称，通过这台新望远镜，每年可能会观测到990次这种潮汐干扰事件。