The matter isn't compressed -- it's being torn apart. The gravity differential becomes so great that even on the atomic scale, the side of an atom nearer to the singularity is pulled far harder than the side opposite...so hard, the nuclear bonds are broken. Each atom being ripped apart releases a burst of X-rays.
That's not accurate. While that may certainly be happening inside the event horizon, closer to the black hole, the gradient is not that strong outside the event horizon. And we could never observe xrays emitted in this manner, as they all end up in the black hole and never escape the event horizon from within it.
What happens to gas near a black hole is that it loses angular momentum due to magnetic fields and friction, and that energy is converted to thermal energy. The gas then heats up so much that it emits xrays.
Depends on the mass of the black hole.
I'm not going to click that. Could you just summarize the point(s) in your own words?
The point at which tidal forces destroy an object or kill a person will depend on the black hole's size. For a supermassive black hole such as those found at a galaxy's center, this point lies within the event horizon so an astronaut may cross the event horizon without noticing any squashing and pulling, although it remains only a matter of time, as once inside an event horizon, falling towards the center is inevitable. For small black holes whose Schwarzchild radius is much closer to the singularity, the tidal forces would kill even before the astronaut reaches the event horizon. For example, for a black hole of 10 solar masses the above-mentioned rod breaks at a distance of 320 km, well outside the Schwarzchild radius of 30 km. For a supermassive black hole of 10,000 solar masses, it will break at a distance of 3200 km, well inside the Schwarzchild radius of 30,000 km.