  Tidal forces close to massive black holes can violently disrupt stars that
make a close approach. These extreme events are discovered via bright X-ray and
optical/UV flares in galactic centers. Prior studies based on modeling decaying
flux trends have been able to estimate broad properties, such as the mass
accretion rate. Here we report the detection of flows of highly ionized X-ray
gas in high-resolution X-ray spectra of a nearby tidal disruption event.
Variability within the absorption-dominated spectra indicates that the gas is
relatively close to the black hole. Narrow line widths indicate that the gas
does not stretch over a large range of radii, giving a low volume filling
factor. Modest outflow speeds of a few hundred kilometers per second are
observed, significantly below the escape speed from the radius set by
variability. The gas flow is consistent with a rotating wind from the inner,
super-Eddington region of a nascent accretion disk, or with a filament of
disrupted stellar gas near to the apocenter of an elliptical orbit. Flows of
this sort are predicted by fundamental analytical theory and more recent
numerical simulations.
