When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.An illustration showing the accretion disc surrounding a black hole, in which the inner region of the disc wobbles. | Credit: NASAAstronomers have observed a star wobbling in its orbit around a ravenous supermassive black hole that is ripping it apart and feasting on its stellar material. The observation is evidence of a rare and elusive phenomenon called the “Lense-Thirring precession” or “frame dragging,” in which a rapidly spinning black hole drags the very fabric of space and time around with its motion.This swirling of spacetime first emerged from Albert Einstein’s 1915 theory of general relativity, which predicted that objects with mass “warp” the fabric of space and time (united as a single entity called spacetime) and that gravity arises from this geometric effect. The greater the mass of the object, the larger its impact on spacetime and thus the greater its gravitational influence. In 1918, the concept of massive, rotating objects dragging spacetime along with it was then solidified using general relativity by Austrian physicists Josef Lense and Hans Thirring.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSince then, however, this effect has been difficult for scientists to observe, meaning the new research could offer scientists a new way to study the spin of black holes, the way in which they feed on, or “accrete,” matter torn from stars in tidal disruption events (TDE), and how TDEs give rise to powerful outflows, or jets.”Our study shows the most compelling evidence yet of Lense-Thirring precession — a black hole dragging space time along with it in much the same way that a spinning top might drag the water around it in a whirlpool,” team member Cosimo Inserra of Cardiff University in the UK, said in a statement. “This is a real gift for physicists as we confirm predictions made more than a century ago. Not only that, but these observations also tell us more about the nature of TDEs – when a star is shredded by the immense gravitational forces exerted by a black hole.”Watch the wobbleThe team set about investigating Lense-Thirring precession by studyi …
