A BLACK hole’s gruesome feast may explain an unusual blast of gamma rays seen in 2006. Long-lasting bursts like this one, which was named GRB 060614, are usually thought to mark the collapse of a massive star that has run out of fuel. But GRB 060614 lacked the usual optical fireworks, and might instead be the result of a large black hole, thousands of times the mass of the sun, dismembering and devouring a star.
A star approaching such a large black hole would be squashed into a pancake by the black hole’s gravity, before ripped into a stream of…
