Things can get pretty confusing when a black hole swallows a star. For example, consider the event known as ASASSN-14li. In this event, a massive star got too close to a supermassive black hole and paid the final price. There are two main dangers posed by black holes. The first is that there is an event horizon. The cosmic mass curve and black holes contain so much mass in so little space that spacetime folds and forms cosmic traps. Anything beyond the event horizon is lost forever. The second reason is the threat of tidal forces. When an object approaches a dense mass, such as a planet, star, or black hole, the parts of the object closest to that mass are attracted slightly stronger than the parts of the object furthest from that mass. Gravity tries to push your body into an ellipse or egg shape instead of a sphere. Because these forces between the Earth and the Moon cause ocean tides, they are called tidal forces. Normally, tidal forces are fairly small, but near dense and massive objects like black holes, tidal forces can become so strong that they can tear objects apart, causing the so-called Tidal Destruction Effect (TDE). You must to do something before you go on.

When a star approaches a black hole, tidal forces typically tear it apart long before it reaches the event horizon. How much of a black hole is engulfed by a star depends on the star’s original orbit. For ASASSN-14li, most of the stars were not swallowed by the black hole. The TDE ripped apart the star, overheating its remnants and emitting powerful X-rays and ultraviolet rays. This was bad news for stars, but great news for astronomers. Spectra recorded after TDE. Photo Credit: Miller et al. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and his ESA’s XMM Newton Telescope both captured his X-ray spectrum of the event, and further observations from other observatories yielded the UV spectrum. I was. Taken together, this has allowed astronomers to delve into the composition of the fate star. In this latest study, the team was able to analyze the spectra of both matter trapped in orbit around the black hole and gas flowing out of the black hole. By comparing the amount of nitrogen and carbon contained in the stellar fragments, the research team was able to confirm that the star has about three times the mass of the sun. Earlier this year, astronomers observed another TDE named Scary Barbie, which could have been a star of 14 solar masses. However, this estimate is based on the overall magnitude of the event rather than the spectrum of the event. ASASSN-14li is currently the largest TDE with a confirmed mass.

source: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ace03c