TESS Catches its First Star destroying Black Hole

For the first time, NASAs planethunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) watched a black hole tear apart a star from start to finish, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. The blast, named ASASSN19bt, was found on Jan. 29 by the AllSky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASASSN), a worldwide network of 20 robotic telescopes. Shortly after the discovery, ASASSN requested followup observations by NASAs Swift satellite, ESAs (European Space Agencys) XMMNewton and groun