NASA scientists spot Sun-like star

Washington: Scientists at NASA have discovered a Sun-like star that is being repeatedly nibbled on by a hungry black hole in a galaxy around 500 million light-years away.

The star called Swift J023017.0+283603 (or Swift J0230 for short), was discovered using NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which was launched in 2004. The scientists used a novel method for analysing data from the satellite’s X-ray Telescope (XRT).

On June 22, last year the XRT captured Swift J0230 for the first time. It lit up in a galaxy around 500 million light-years away in the northern constellation Triangulum. Swift’s XRT observed nine additional outbursts from the same location roughly every few weeks.