NASA___Massive_Black_Hole_Shreds_Passing_Star

This artist's rendering illustrates new findings about a star
shredded by a black hole. When a star wanders too close
to a black hole, intense tidal forces rip the star apart. In
these events, called "tidal disruptions," some of the stellar
debris is flung outward at high speed while the rest falls
toward the black hole. This causes a distinct X-ray flare
that can last for a few years. NASA's Chandra X-ray
Observatory, Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer, and ESA/
NASA's XMM-Newton collected different pieces of this
astronomical puzzle in a tidal disruption event called
ASASSN-14Ii, which was found in an optical search by the
All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) in
November 2014. The event occurred neara supermassive
black hole estimated to weigh a few million times the
mass of the sun in the center of PGC 043234, a galaxy that
lies about 290 million light-years away. Astronomers hope
to find more events like ASASSN-14li to test theoretical
models about how black holes affect their environments.