A Tour of Galaxy Cluster Abell 1795

A star that wanders too close to a supermassive black hole is doomed, as it should be ripped apart by extreme tidal forces. The debris from the star is expected to fall towards the black hole, getting hotter and producing intense X-rays. The X-rays should then fade as the hot gas spirals inward. Using Chandra, this behavior may have been spotted, for the first time, in a dwarf galaxy. Bright X-rays from the location of this small galaxy were seen in 1999 until they faded and eventually disappeared in 2005.