Black holes are nature’s ultimate shadow dwellers—silent, invisible unless they interact with their surroundings. Some continuously devour gas and dust, glowing eerily as matter spirals inward. Others, however, lie in wait for years, lurking undetected until an unsuspecting star drifts too close.
A new study utilizing NASA, ESA, and ground-based observatories has captured three extreme examples of supermassive black holes violently consuming massive stars. These eruptions unleashed more energy than 100 supernovae, making them the most powerful cosmic explosions seen since the Big Bang.
Each black hole resides at the heart of a distant galaxy and was silent for years—until a star three to ten times heavier than the Sun wandered too close. In an instant, the black hole tore it apart, triggering an intense outburst that lasted for months, illuminating the cosmos like a celestial beacon.
Black holes are notorious for their invisibility, but every so often, the cosmos offers a rare glimpse into their hidden power. Scientists have identified a new class of cosmic events known as extreme nuclear transients—violent outbursts that illuminate some of the universe’s most massive, ordinarily silent black holes.
“These events are the only way we can have a spotlight that we can shine on otherwise inactive massive black holes,” said Jason Hinkle, lead author of a new study.
“These events unleash enormous amounts of high-energy radiation on the central regions of their host galaxies. This has implications for the environments in which these events occur. If galaxies have these events, they’re important for the galaxies themselves.”
When a star meets its doom in a black hole’s grip, it doesn’t vanish quietly—it erupts in high-energy light, taking over 100 days to reach its brightest point before slowly fading over 150 days. This violent process sends ripples through space, affecting its surroundings and producing lower-energy emissions that telescopes can pick up.
One such event, nicknamed “Barbie,” was first spotted in 2020 by the Zwicky Transient Facility in California. Two others were detected earlier by ESA’s Gaia mission in 2016 and 2018.
NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory played a crucial role in confirming these were black hole-feeding frenzies, not supernova explosions or other cosmic disturbances. The way the X-ray, ultraviolet, and optical light flared and faded was a perfect match to the telltale signature of a star being torn apart.
NASA’s WISE spacecraft initially operated from 2009 to 2011 before being reactivated as NEOWISE, played a crucial role in uncovering the dusty environments surrounding black holes, a role it continued until its retirement in 2024. By mapping the sky in infrared wavelengths, WISE enabled scientists to detect new cosmic phenomena and distant objects in the universe’s most extreme regions.
Numerous ground-based observatories also contributed to the findings, including the W. M. Keck Observatory and several NASA-supported Near-Earth Object surveys, such as ATLAS, Pan-STARRS, and Catalina. Together, these powerful tools helped researchers identify the chemical fingerprints of these high-energy events.
“This work is exciting because we’re pushing the upper bounds of what we understand to be the most energetic environments of the universe,” said Anna Payne, co-author of the study and scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Funding from NASA’s FINEST grant enabled Jason Hinkle to track down and analyze these rare cosmic events. Ben Shappee, a study co-author and astronomy professor at the University of Hawaii, emphasized its impact, saying, “The FINEST grant gave Jason the freedom to figure out what these events were.
Journal Reference:
- Jason Hinkle, Benjamin Shappe, et al. The most energetic transients: Tidal disruptions of high-mass stars. Science Advances. DOI: 10.1126/sci-adv.adt0074
