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However, in rare instances, a star isn't wholly swallowed by its gigantic neighbor and is pulled into an orbit, causing a much slower death, which would probably be more painful if stars could feel anything.
The new paper is the latest in a series that goes back a few years. It started with the discovery of AT2018fyk, a"tidal disruption event" , back in 2018. A TDE is what astronomers see when a star is devoured by a black hole. AT2018fyk was originally captured by NASA'sInterior Composition Explorer . Follow-up observations were completed by Chandra and XMM-Newton, ESA's X-ray telescope.
That second luminosity spike was likely caused by the star being partially devoured again as it was captured in a highly elliptical orbit around the black hole. Once every few years, it approaches closely enough that more of its material is ripped away, causing another TDE. But this time, scientists were ready and devised a hypothesis for when the TDE would end.
Either way, it definitely loses mass each time, as the second event is less luminous than the first. By that logic, the next one should be even less luminous if there is even a third event.
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