A star torn apart

tidal disruption event · modelled on AT2019qiz

215 million light-years from Earth

When a star wanders too close to a giant black hole, the difference in gravity across it pulls it into a long stream of gas: "spaghettification". Half the debris is flung away; the rest falls back, forms a disk and flares for months. This one is modelled on AT2019qiz, the closest such flare yet seen.

• a Sun-like star falls toward a black hole of a million Suns
• at 45 Schwarzschild radii its own gravity can no longer hold it together

kind

black hole · explosion or collision