Bright flash was black hole jet aimed at Earth, scientists claim

The very brilliant light seen in the February night sky was caused by a black hole aimed directly at Earth, according to researchers. This is the furthest such incident documented by scientists and the first time one has been identified using visible light.

Scientists stated that the source of the intense light was a star that had wandered too near to a supermassive black hole and been torn apart by its gravitational force. Approximately 8.5 billion light-years distant from Earth is where the uncommon cosmic event took place. On February 11, the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory at the California Institute of Technology picked up the signal from the bright explosion, which has been designated AT 2022 cmc.

Stars that orbit too near to a black hole are ripped to pieces, and the resulting explosion may be felt throughout the cosmos, so say the scientists. A TDE is shorthand for tidal disruption event and describes this phenomenon. Although similar phenomena have been seen by astronomers before, AT 2022 cmc is far brighter than any previously identified. It's also the farthest object seen thus far.

According to CNN, scientists think the black hole unleashed a huge amount of energy and sent a jet of material speeding through space at almost the speed of light when it swallowed the star. The jet's orientation toward Earth undoubtedly contributed to the "Doppler-boosting" effect that made the brilliant explosion look so dazzling in our sky.

The researchers said that the brightest lights in the sky are usually explained by gamma-ray bursts, which are intense jets of X-rays emitted when big stars die.

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According to Dheeraj Pasham, lead author of the Nature Astronomy report, AT 2022cmc was "100 times more intense than the most powerful gamma-ray burst afterglow" ever observed. Why certain tidal disruption events produce these jets and others don't is still a mystery to astronomers. More observations of such occurrences, they added, could eventually provide light on how black holes can shoot such strong jets into space.