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I'm genuinely curious. Why is this phenomenon not obvious? Wouldn't it be expected to see the materials "stretch" as they are pulled away and then compress as they get closer to the gravity of the black hole?

Or is the compression weird, as in the material should have stayed in the stretched state and not compress at all? Maybe this is a situation where researchers never had the tools to prove their theory until now?

I hope my questions made enough sense to get some solid feedback

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So in theory if we look around long enough at just the right time…we can watch a star being dissected?

Maybe the materials stretch and behave In A way similar to holding and dropping a stretched slinky, when dropped to the floor the end your holding recompresses and then all drops at once. So the front of the material in question begins to stretch and only recompresses when it gets closer to the “floor” so to speak. Floor being a difference in gravity and pressure?

The title is a bit misleading. The proposed model allows for parial Tidal Disruption Events, where the entire star is not completely destroyed. This is the surprising part, as TDE's have been known about for some time.