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-14li, which was found in an optical search by
the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae
(ASAS-SN) in November 2014. The event occurred
near a 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.
During the tidal disruption event, filaments containing
much of the star's mass fall toward the black hole.
Eventually these gaseous filaments merge into a
smooth, hot disk glowing brightly in X-rays. As the disk
forms, its central region heats up tremendously, which
drives a flow of material, called a wind, away from the
disk.