X-ray & Optical Images of AT2018fyk

Researchers took note of AT2018fyk in 2018 when the optical ground-based survey ASAS-SN detected that the system had become much brighter. After observing it with NASA’s NICER and Chandra, and XMM-Newton, researchers determined that the surge in brightness came from a tidal disruption event (TDE), which signals that a star was completely torn apart and partially ingested after flying too close to a black hole. In this image, Chandra data of AT2018fyk is shown as an inset of an optical image of a wider field-of-view of the area.