NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, along with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Very Large Array, has captured a rare event: a supermassive black hole ripping apart and consuming a star. This tidal disruption event (TDE), designated AT2024tvd, occurred 600 million light-years away and marks the first time an offset TDE has been observed by optical sky surveys.
Unlike most TDEs that occur at the centers of galaxies, AT2024tvd is located 2,600 light-years away from the center of its host galaxy, suggesting the presence of a wandering black hole. This black hole, estimated to be one million times the mass of our Sun, is actively consuming surrounding material. The event was initially detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility at Caltech's Palomar Observatory.
The discovery, led by Yuhan Yao from the University of California, Berkeley, provides insights into the dynamics of galaxies and the behavior of black holes outside galactic centers. The observation of AT2024tvd, captured on January 16, 2025, may motivate further research into offset TDEs and the population of wandering black holes.