In order to find exoplanets, TESS is surveying stars -- and that's how it found the aftermath of a violent encounter. As part of that mission, and for the first time, TESS stumbled upon a star being shredded by a supermassive black hole. When stars wander too close to a black hole, they can't escape the black hole's gravity and get pulled apart. The rest makes a tasty meal for the black hole, which pulls the material into its hot, glowing accretion disk made of gas. These events cause black holes to release flashes of brightness, illuminating the process for astronomers trying to understand the different processes of black holes.