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Black holes are typically invisible, revealing themselves only when interacting with their surroundings. While some continuously consume gas and dust—glowing brightly in the process—others remain dormant for years until a star wanders too close. Now, astronomers have captured three dramatic instances of these cosmic giants feasting on massive stars in what may be the most energetic events since the Big Bang.
A new study, based on space- and ground-based data from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and other institutions, describes three “extreme nuclear transients”—rare and powerful explosions that occur when supermassive black holes devour stars up to ten times the mass of our Sun. These violent events released more energy than 100 supernovae and briefly lit up the centers of distant galaxies for several months.
“These events are the only way we can shine a spotlight on otherwise inactive massive black holes,” said Jason Hinkle, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii and lead author of the study, published in Science Advances.
Each transient was triggered by a star being ripped apart by a supermassive black hole at the center of its galaxy. As the star’s material spiraled inward, it heated up and unleashed high-energy light—primarily in ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths—before fading slowly over hundreds of days. The energy unleashed was so extreme that scientists say these transients may play a significant role in shaping their host galaxies.
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“That has implications for the environments in which these events are occurring,” Hinkle added. “If galaxies have these events, they’re important for the galaxies themselves.”
One such event, nicknamed “Barbie” (ZTF20abrbeie), was discovered in 2020 by the Zwicky Transient Facility at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory. The other two were spotted earlier by ESA’s Gaia mission in 2016 and 2018 but only recently identified as star-destroying black hole events.
NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory was instrumental in confirming the black hole origins. The changing patterns in X-ray, UV, and optical light matched the known behavior of black holes shredding stars, rather than more common cosmic explosions like supernovae.
Additional data from NASA’s WISE mission—later reactivated as NEOWISE—helped scientists characterize the dust surrounding these black holes. Observatories such as Keck, Pan-STARRS, ATLAS, and Catalina also played key roles.
“What I think is so exciting about this work is that we’re pushing the upper bounds of what we understand to be the most energetic environments of the universe,” said Anna Payne, a co-author and staff scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Supported by a FINESST grant from NASA, Hinkle will continue this work as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign through the prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship Program. “One of the biggest questions in astronomy is how black holes grow throughout the universe,” Hinkle said.
These findings also complement recent James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) data showing how black holes feed in the early universe. However, because only about 10% of black holes are actively feeding at any given time, catching one in the act of destroying a star provides a unique opportunity to spot otherwise hidden giants.
Thanks to their extreme brightness, these transients might even be visible in the early universe. While Swift revealed that most of their energy is emitted in ultraviolet light, that light stretches into the infrared over cosmic distances—making it a perfect target for NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching as early as 2026.
With its infrared sensitivity and wide field of view, Roman could detect these dramatic events from more than 12 billion years ago—shedding light on how black holes, stars, and galaxies evolved when the universe was just a tenth of its current age.