Star ‘squeezed like toothpaste tube’ by supermassive black hole

  • last year
An “extraordinary flash” seen in the sky earlier this year was caused by a distant star being “squeezed like a toothpaste tube” by a supermassive black hole, astronomers have said.In what experts describe as one of the most violent events in the universe, the unlucky star met its fate after wandering too close to this black hole, sparking a light show bright enough – with more light than a thousand trillion suns – to be detected by instruments on Earth.Astronomers have previously observed other such tidal disruption events (TDEs) – where a passing star is ripped apart by a black hole’s tidal forces – but the experts say this one, dubbed AT2022cmc, is the brightest yet.PA/ESO