What process describes a star being torn apart when it passes too close to a supermassive black hole?

A star being torn apart when it passes too close to a supermassive black hole undergoes a tidal disruption event.

A black hole’s gravity can pull much more strongly on the near side of a star than on its far side. If the star crosses the tidal disruption radius, this difference overwhelms the star’s self-gravity. The star is stretched into a stream of gas, and some of that material can form an accretion disk around the black hole.

A tidal disruption event often produces a bright, temporary flare across ultraviolet, optical, or X-ray wavelengths. The flare can reveal a normally quiet black hole that is otherwise difficult to observe. These events are different from supernovae: the star is destroyed by a nearby black hole’s tides rather than by the collapse of its own core.