Camilla Jessen
Astronomers detect brightest black hole flare ever recorded.
A 30-solar-mass star torn apart in a galaxy 10 billion light-years away may rewrite what we know about black holes.
Astronomers have observed the most powerful black hole flare ever recorded, an event so intense it emitted the energy equivalent of 10 trillion suns.
Detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), the flare came from a galaxy over 10 billion light-years away, at the heart of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) labeled J2245+3743.
A supermassive black hole
The flare was sparked by a tidal disruption event (TDE). This is when a massive star, estimated to be 30 times the mass of our sun, got too close to a supermassive black hole and was violently torn apart by gravity.
The black hole itself is estimated to weigh 500 million solar masses.
“This is unlike any AGN we’ve ever seen,” said Matthew Graham of Caltech. “The energetics show this object is very far away and very bright.”
Since first being observed in 2018, the flare has grown 40 times brighter over a few months, peaking at 30 times the brightness of any previously recorded TDE.
Scientists describe the flare as still ongoing, comparing it to “a fish only halfway down the whale’s gullet.”
Because the black hole is so far away, time dilation caused by the expanding universe is allowing scientists to view the event in slow motion, stretched out over years.
The discovery also challenges past assumptions, as TDEs are rarely seen in already-active black holes. New observatories, including the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, may help astronomers detect more of these extreme cosmic events.
The findings were published Nov. 4 in Nature Astronomy and on the news outlet Space.
This article is made and published by Camilla Jessen, who may have used AI in the preparation
