Most energetic tidal disruption flare observed from a SMBH

Astronomers have documented the most energetic flare ever observed from a supermassive black hole after it tore apart a massive star, producing a burst of light roughly 10 trillion times the brightness of the Sun. The event, first detected in 2018 and now analyzed in a study published in Nature Astronomy, was measured at a distance of about 10 to 11 billion lightyears from Earth and is still fading years after its initial outburst.

Researchers say the flare was produced when a very large star wandered too close to a supermassive black hole and was shredded by tidal forces in a process known as a tidal disruption event. As the stellar debris spiraled into the black hole, it heated and emitted a powerful, long-lived burst of radiation. At peak brightness the flare was roughly 30 times more luminous than any comparable event previously recorded, and it brightened by a factor of about 30 to 40 over a period of months before beginning a gradual decline.

The study, led by Matthew Graham of the California Institute of Technology, concludes that the star involved was unusually massive, with estimates placing its mass at a minimum of about 30 times that of the Sun and possibly as high as...