A supermassive black hole violently gobbled up an enormous star, producing a gargantuan cosmic outburst, according to a new study.

A supermassive black hole violently gobbled up an enormous star, producing a gargantuan cosmic outburst, according to a new study.

The black hole flare, as the phenomenon is known, is thought to be the biggest and most distant ever recorded — it was detected from 10 billion light-years away.

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

  • teft@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    Sag A* doesn’t point north south in the galactic plane. It’s more like a light house sweeping around with its north and south aligned 50 or 60° off the galactic plane.

    This is probably due to collisions in the past with other super massive black holes knocking it off alignment with the galaxy.

    • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Oh shit, yeah that wouldn’t be good at all then. Like a galactic deli slicer. Time to take some X, listen to edm and get the glow sticks out.