Few Cosmic Events Can Rival The Brightness Of This Black Hole Shredding A Star Apart

This illustration shows the "Cow", the first example of a fast blue optical transient. It was discovered in 2018 and was 10 to 100 times brighter than a supernova explosion. Now, astronomers have found an even brighter one. Image Credit: Phil Drury, University of Sheffield

A distant black hole shredded a companion star that got too close. The star was torn to pieces and the explosion was an extremely powerful event, more energetic than a supernova. At its peak, the energy released was 400 billion times brighter than the Sun.

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