Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 31, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
A possible relativistic jetted outburst from a massive black hole fed by a tidally disrupted star
Joshua S Bloom1, Dimitrios Giannios, Brian D Metzger
1Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411, USA. jbloom@astro.berkeley.edu
Abstract:
Gas accretion onto some massive black holes (MBHs) at the centers of galaxies actively powers luminous emission, but most MBHs are considered dormant. Occasionally, a star passing too near an MBH is torn apart by gravitational forces, leading to a bright tidal disruption flare (TDF). Although the high-energy transient Sw 1644+57 initially displayed none of the theoretically anticipated (nor previously observed) TDF characteristics, we show that observations suggest a sudden accretion event onto a central MBH of mass about 10(6) to 10(7) solar masses. There is evidence for a mildly relativistic outflow, jet collimation, and a spectrum characterized by synchrotron and inverse Compton processes; this leads to a natural analogy of Sw 1644+57 to a temporary smaller-scale blazar.
Related Concept Videos
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon
The minimum speed required to launch a projectile from the surface of an object to which it is gravitationally bound so that it eventually escapes the object’s gravitational field is called the escape velocity. The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the object. Merging the idea of escape velocity with the...
Potential Due to a Polarized Object
Gravitation Between Spherically Symmetric Masses
Rocket Propulsion in Gravitational Field - II
A rocket's acceleration depends on three major factors, consistent with the equation for the...
Rocket Propulsion in Gravitational Field - I
The motion of a rocket in space changes its velocity (and hence its...

