Mysterious bright blue cosmic blasts triggered by black holes shredding stars, scientists say. 'It's definitely not just an exploding star.'

(Main) This composite image features X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared data of the luminous fast blue optical transient (LFBOT) named AT 2024wpp. The transient is the bright spot at the upper right edge of its host galaxy, which is 1.1 billion light-years from Earth. (Inset) An illustration of a Tidal Disruption Event.

The brightest cosmic object of its kind ever detected may have helped astronomers solve the mystery of powerful, bright blue cosmic explosions.

At the heart of the discovery is a signal from a so-called Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT), designated AT 2024wpp, first spotted in 2024. The signal revealed to a team of scientists that LFBOTs are the result of extreme Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs), in which a black hole with a mass up to 100 times that of the sun, completely shreds a companion star in just a matter of days.