HLX-1 Animation

This video is an illustration of an intermediate-mass black hole capturing and gravitationally shredding a star. It begins by zooming into a pair of galaxies. The galaxy at lower left, NGC 6099, contains a dense star cluster in its outskirts. The video then zooms into the heart of the cluster, showing a close-up of the black hole. A star wanders near the black hole and is gravitationally torn apart in a burst of radiation.