Scientists watched a black hole burp out the light of 10 trillion suns

Researchers have detected a black hole consuming a massive star, marking the largest burst of light from a black hole ever observed.

Scientists watched a black hole burp out the light of 10 trillion suns
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Tech and Science Editor
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TL;DR: Astronomers recorded the largest black hole flare ever, caused by a supermassive black hole 10 billion light years away consuming a massive star. This tidal disruption event emitted energy equivalent to 10 trillion suns, observed through the Zwicky Transient Facility and confirmed by Keck Observatory data. Monitoring continues due to cosmological time dilation.

Astronomers have detected the biggest black hole burp ever recorded using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), tracing the event back to the supermassive black hole located at the center of a galaxy 10 billion light-years away.

Scientists watched a black hole burp out the light of 10 trillion suns 321
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A black hole burp, or what is scientifically referred to as a flare, is an astronomical event that occurs when a black hole consumes an object. In the instance of this flare, researchers traced the eruption back to the supermassive black hole known as J2245+3743 and a star estimated to be 30 times the mass of the Sun getting stuck in the gravitational pull of the black hole. The result is the star being absolutely torn apart, and its material being added to the swirling, flattened disk seen around active black holes.

Researchers call this devouring of a star a tidal disruption event, and according to researchers, the flare emitted as much energy as 10 trillion suns. Notably, the flare was initially spotted in 2018 by the ZTF, but it wasn't until 2023 and data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii that showed the true nature of the flare, further cementing the theory that the black hole consumed an unusually large star.

"If you convert our entire sun to energy, using Albert Einstein's famous formula E = mc^2, that's how much energy has been pouring out from this flare since we began observing it," said K. E. Saavik Ford, team member and City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center

Additionally, the team still continues to monitor the event thanks to the time dilation that is a result of the intense gravitational pull of the black hole.

"It's a phenomenon called cosmological time dilation due to the stretching of space and time. As the light travels across expanding space to reach us, its wavelength stretches as does time itself. Seven years here is two years there. We are watching the event play back at quarter speed," said Matthew Graham, team leader at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and ZTF scientist