Astronomers watch a star being torn to pieces by a supermassive black hole

Astronomers discovered AT2024wpp, an extraordinarily powerful tidal disruption event where a supermassive black hole tore apart a massive star through "spaghettification," releasing energy equivalent to 400 billion times the Sun's output. This rare phenomenon belongs to a special class called Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients and produced a shock wave traveling at one-fifth light speed. The event helps scientists better understand black hole formation and behavior, while mysterious hydrogen and helium traces detected months later suggest possible undiscovered objects in the system.