Scientists have announced the largest black hole flare ever, with the light of 10 trillion suns

A supermassive black hole violently swallowed a massive star, triggering a cosmic explosion with the light of 10 trillion suns, according to a new study.

The black hole flare, as the phenomenon is known, is believed to be the largest and most distant ever recorded, having been detected 10 billion light-years away.

“This is really a one-in-a-million object,” said Matthew Graham, a research professor of astronomy at Caltech and lead author of the study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Graham said a black hole glow is the most likely explanation based on the intensity and duration of the explosion, but follow-up studies will help researchers confirm their findings.

It’s not uncommon for black holes to consume nearby stars, gas, dust and other forms of matter, but such a massive event is extremely rare, Graham said.

“This massive flare is much more energetic than anything we’ve seen before,” he said, adding that at its peak, the explosion was 30 times brighter than any previous black hole flare seen to date.

Part of the intensity came from the sheer size of both cosmic bodies involved. It is estimated that the ill-fated star that wandered close to the black hole has a mass of at least 30 times the mass of the Sun. Meanwhile, the mass of the supermassive black hole and the material disk surrounding it is estimated to be 500 million times the mass of the Sun.

Graham said the powerful explosion has been going on for more than seven years, and is likely still happening.

The glow was first discovered in 2018 during a wide-sky survey using three ground-based telescopes. At the time it was registered as a “particularly bright object,” Graham said, but during observations months later, scientists were unable to obtain much useful information.

As such, the black hole’s flare was mostly forgotten until 2023, when Graham and his colleagues decided to revisit points of interest from their previous survey. This time, astronomers made a rough calculation of the distance to the bright object they saw, and the result was shocking.

“All of a sudden, he was like, ‘Oh, that’s actually too far,'” Graham said. “And if it’s that far away and that bright, how much energy is being released? Now this is something very unusual and interesting.”

It’s not yet known exactly how the star met its demise, but Graham said a case of cosmic impact cars may have struck the star and knocked it out of its usual orbit around the black hole, causing the close encounter.

The results help provide a more complete picture of how black holes behave and evolve.

“Our idea of ​​supermassive black holes and their environments has really changed over the past five to 10 years,” Graham said. “There was this classic picture that most galaxies in the universe have a supermassive black hole in the middle, and it’s just there and flowing along, and that’s it. Now we know it’s a much more dynamic environment and we’re just beginning to scratch the surface.”

The glow is steadily fading over time, but will likely continue to be observed with ground-based telescopes for a few years, he said.