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A black hole fell into a star – then ate its way out again (www.newscientist.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/space@mander.xyz
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A black hole that was eaten by a star seems to have gotten revenge by consuming the star from the inside, producing a gamma-ray burst spotted about 9 billion light-years from Earth.

The burst, called GRB 250702B, was first spotted by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in July. Such bursts are bright flashes caused by jets fired out from energetic events, such as massive stars collapsing into black holes or neutron stars merging, and they usually last no more than a few minutes.

GRB 250702B, however, lasted for 25,000 seconds – or about 7 hours – making it the longest-known gamma-ray burst. Scientists had struggled to explain it, but Eliza Neights at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in the US and her colleagues now suggest an unusual and rare possibility.

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[–] 12 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

Even the Sun's light can take thousands of years to actually exit the sun.

The wording is not how light from our sun works... Unless you're simplifying greatly. It's not in a maze or some container that takes thousands of years to escape. The light is based on photons that are emitted via nuclear fusion then some mass being converted to energy/photons.

I've read that photons can bounce around (i.e. be absorbed and re-emitted) an estimated 40,000 years... but we all should understand that is a) an estimate and b) an estimate for the inner-most photons. Photons created via near-surface level areas of the sun may be emitted outward from the sun near-instantaneously.

All this to say that the light/photon(s) don't/doesn't start out as light. However, once a photon exists, it may be trapped for thousands of years due to the shear amount of mass trapping it and needing to be absorbed/re-emitted until space-bound!

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Greatly simplifying, yes.

    The point is the vast majority of stellar scale events are crazy slow compared to what we'd normally assume, because stars are insanely huge. 7 hours is still a flash in the pan.

    The black hole didn't just drop straight in. The sun was undoubtedly orbiting the black hole. It'd take time for the matter to even get close enough. 7 hours sounds crazy fast to me.

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