News Astronomy

Black hole–shredded megastars power a new class of cosmic explosions

Each explosion releases more energy than the sun will produce in its entire lifetime

Illustration of a spherical black hole surrounded by a disk of glittering remnants of a star.

A new class of cosmic explosions — which emit more energy than any other brightness-changing event — may come from megastars getting shredded by supermassive black holes (illustrated).

Adam Makarenko, W.M. Keck Observatory

By McKenzie Prillaman

Read another version of this article at Science News Explores

Massive stars know how to go out in style.