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Q&A: Black Holes
Q:
When a black hole sucks a star-in-main-sequence what happens
to it once inside? Will it continue the sequence? Can we
expect Supernovas inside or will the cycle end very abruptly?
Won't the swallowing action upset or alter the "mutual"
gravitational attraction the star had with other celestial
bodies (especially when the star is binary)?
A:
Once a star passes beyond the event horizon of a black hole,
its evolutionary cycle will definitely be disrupted. For a
supermassive black hole of the type that exists at the center
of our galaxy, the star will be torn apart before it gets to
the event horizon. For billion-solar mass black holes, it may
survive the passage, but not for long. No stable orbit exists
inside the black hole, so the star will descend deeper into
the black hole at near the speed of light, and will be torn
apart in a matter of days.