[bizerl (OP)]

Okay, so I know that a lot of you are thinking "Oh, not another black hole question" and the moderators are getting ready to throw it over to "New Theories", but...

If a star is collides with a black hole, it is essentially subject to immense gravitational force, even before it reaches the event horizon. So if it is still emitting light, would that light be red-shifted to the extent of becoming microwave radiation? If this was the case, then could this be some sort of signature for detecting black holes?

edit - I should point out that I realise the radiation would not be emitted by the black hole, but by the star as it approaches the event horizon. Beyond the event horizon, as we all know, matter turns into green cheese which Santa Claus feeds to his reindeer, and they can only get out every 3000 years on halloween.

[syhprum]

I don't think it is really possible for a star to collide with a blackhole as they are very small what normaly happens is that the star gets ripped apart and goes into very high speed orbit and is heated to Xray generating temperatures.

[Emc2]

oh no !!!  it's another black hole thread. lol...

the black hole starts to "eat" the star before it ever can collide..

you don't really need to see any radiation to detect the black hole, just the act of interacting or "eating" the star gives clues that a black hole is there..

 good video on it here ( more on links section at video page )