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When stars get too close to a supermassive black hole, they get ripped apart. This process has been dubbed "spaghettification." The star is stretched into a thin noodle-like filament which releases a burst of energy that can be seen hundreds of millions of light years away.
These events have been spotted over the years, but the filament had not been observed until now. Astronomers were able to see the absorption lines, as the molecules of the ex-star absorbed light from its surroundings.
They saw this when looking at the black hole's rotational pole. Materials appeared to be wrapped multiple times around the equator, where its accretion disc is located, but some of it was also wrapped around and above its pole. The team likened this to a ball of yarn.
The official term for this spaghettification is a Tidal Disruption Event, or TDE.
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