Scientists detect biggest black hole flare ever seen — with the power of 10 trillion suns
Astronomers have spotted the biggest flare ever seen erupting around a black hole, which also happens to be the most distant flare of this type ever detected. The supermassive black hole in J2245+3743 is feeding on surrounding gas and dust whirling around it in a flattened cloud shape called an accretion disk, but this flare is actually the result of something else: an unusually massive star venturing too close to the black hole which has a mass 500 million times greater than the sun). The tremendous gravitational influence of the black hole is ripping apart the star, and its stellar remains are being fed to this cosmic titan — an occurrence scientists call a tidal disruption event, or TDE. "This is unlike any AGN we've ever seen," Matthew Graham, team leader at theCalifornia Institute of Technology (Caltech) and a ZTF scientist, said in a statement. "The energetics show this object is very far away and very bright." The flare was first spotted in 2018 by the ZT...