Astronomers Witness the Most , Distant Black Hole Event , in Recorded History.<br />The Daily Beast reports that researchers have detected <br />a supermassive black hole swallowing a star 12.4 billion <br />light-years away in an event dubbed AT2022cmc.<br />As a star gets close to a black hole, a process referred to as<br />"spaghettification" begins to pull the star apart, resulting <br />in an enormous jet of energy detectable from Earth.<br />This rare process, known as a tidal <br />disruption event (TDE), was witnessed <br />by an international team of astronomers.<br />The observation reportedly gave astronomers valuable <br />insights into how supermassive black holes are formed <br />and how our universe looked when it was still young.<br />The luminous jet of material was <br />launched almost at the speed of light <br />and the jet was pointing in our direction. , Igon Andreoni, Astronomer at the University <br />of Maryland, via The Daily Beast.<br />This is an extremely rare phenomenon and <br />it is even rarer that it can be observed at all <br />because the jet is collimated, which means <br />that we can observe it only if we are very <br />close to the direction in which it is pointing, Igon Andreoni, Astronomer at the University <br />of Maryland, via The Daily Beast.<br />According to Igon Andreoni, co-leader of the team, <br />the light from the event traveled for approximately <br />8.5 billion years before it reached Earth.<br />This means that the TDE occurred <br />at a time when the universe was <br />just one-third of its current age.<br />The team's work was published <br />on November 30 in the journals <br />'Nature' and 'Nature Astronomy.'.<br />Unveiling a population of such rare transients means that we can greatly improve our understanding of the violent universe, Igon Andreoni, Astronomer at the University <br />of Maryland, via The Daily Beast
