A black hole repeatedly destroying a star

Animation describing the scientific result published here: Wevers, Coughlin, Pasham et al. (2022), A mysterious flash of electromagnetic radiation from the center of a galaxy some 800 million light years away was first detected in 2018. The flare lasted for about 2 years and then it disappeared. This behavior is consistent with the supermassive black hole at the center of that galaxy tidally disrupting a passing star. However, surprisingly, the center of that galaxy brightened again in 2022. A new study suggests that this can be explained by a repeating partial tidal disruption where a star is in a bound orbit and provides a periodic snack to the black hole.