Chandra Release - August 22, 2023

Visual Description: ASASSN-14li

This release features an artist's illustration of red stellar debris swirling around a giant, spherical black hole. The debris field represents the remains of a star with three times the mass of our Sun, which was ripped apart by the black hole's immense gravity. This tidal disruption event is known as ASASSN-14li. Its aftermath was studied by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA's XMM-Newton, and other telescopes.

At the center of the illustration is the spherical black hole, half-submerged in the debris field, which resembles the top half of a jet black ball. The ball sits at the core of the disk-shaped debris field, which is composed of distinct orange and red rings. A long, wide, ribbon of red cloud, representing part of the star's residual gas, enters the illustration at our lower left corner. This ribbon of red gas sweeps toward our center right across the black, starry sky. There, the gas curves back to the left, behind the black hole. Drawn in by gravity, the ribbon of gas encircles the ringed disk of brick red and golden orange stellar debris. This debris orbits, and eventually falls into, the black hole. Faint blue mist appears to radiate from the black hole and the orbiting stellar debris field. This mist represents the portion of stellar gas driven away from the ringed disk by a wind.