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Black Hole Tearing a Star Apart: New Findings Seen in Artist’s Rendering

What happens when a star gets too close to a black hole? Recent observations by a trio of orbiting X-ray telescopes of an event dubbed ASASSN-14li, in a distant galactic center, gives one star’s terrifying story.

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 ASASSN-14li. The event occurred near a supermassive black hole estimated to weigh a few million times the mass of the sun in the center of a galaxy that lies about 290 million light-years away.