NASA said Monday one of its satellites spotted a rare phenomenon in outer space. The satellite measured a large burst of X-rays coming from a black hole being circled by a star. This occurred about 8,000 light years from Earth.
The black hole had been sucking gas from a nearby star that is only slightly smaller than the sun. The gas was travelling to a storage disk surrounding the black hole. After some time, the gas heated up so much it fell into the hole and X-rays shot from its center. According to NASA, this happens once a torrent of stored gas rushes suddenly toward either a neutron star or a black hole.
NASA put together an animation back in 2012 of a very similar event and used it to display the current phenomenon. The event is called an X-ray nova.
