Black Hole Tears a Star Apart This computer-simulated image shows gas from a star falling into a black hole. Astronomers, reporting in the journal Nature, say they observed a flare in ultraviolet and optical light, telling them there was a black hole tearing a star apart. (NASA/S. Gezari (Johns Hopkins) /A. Rest (Space Telescope Science Institute) /R. Chornock (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics))