How is an intermediate mass black hole like the Cookie Monster? They’re both really sloppy eaters

If you had to wager on a star vs. a black hole, you’d bet on the black hole to win every time.

But how it wins tells us a lot about it. Your standard-issue stellar mass black hole (one with, say, 5 to 100 times the mass of the mass of the Sun) would tidily (and tidally) pull material off the star and eat it slowly over time. A supermassive black hole (with over 100,000 times the mass of the Sun) could eat a star whole in one gulp, especially the ones at the top of the weight scale with billions...