Black holes absorb objects in different ways. They can slowly pull gas from the shell of a star and gradually destroy it until thermonuclear fusion stops in it. Or the star will come close enough to the event horizon of the black hole, the latter can tear it apart and "swallow" it piece by piece. This phenomenon is called a "tidal disruption event"
This video shows how recently, for the first time, the planet observation satellite TESS] observed how a black hole tears apart a star from beginning to end exactly according to the tidal destruction scenario.
The black hole in this system weighs about six million suns and is located about 375 million light-years away from us. The destroyed star may have been similar in size to the Sun.
Dark Space
