NEW YORK – In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have detected the most brilliant flare ever observed from a supermassive black hole, radiating with an intensity equivalent to 10 trillion suns.

These luminous flares, which result from phenomena such as entangled magnetic fields or disturbances in the hot gas disks encircling black holes, provide crucial insights into the enigmatic nature of these cosmic giants.

The remarkable flare was first captured in 2018 by a camera at the Palomar Observatory in California. It reached its peak brightness over a span of three months and has gradually diminished since its initial blaze.

The spectacular event is believed to have been triggered when an enormous star ventured too close to the black hole and was subsequently torn apart.

“Initially, we were skeptical about the energy readings,” explained Matthew Graham, a study author from the California Institute of Technology, the institution responsible for managing Palomar Observatory.

The new findings were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The flare came from a supermassive black hole that’s 10 billion light years away, making the flash the most distant one observed so far. It hails from a time when the universe was rather young. A light year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers).

Almost every large galaxy, including our Milky Way, has a supermassive black hole at its center. But scientists still aren’t sure how they form.

Studying such behemoths can help researchers better understand the stellar neighborhood surrounding supermassive black holes.

The discovery also allows scientists “to probe the interaction of supermassive black holes with their environments early in the universe,” said Joseph Michail with Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which didn’t have a role in the new study.

Those early interactions created the cosmos we now call home.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.