Imagine a cosmic spectacle so rare and fleeting that it occurs once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a galaxy like our Milky Way. A star, roughly the size of our sun, ventures too close to a supermassive black hole and is torn apart in a cataclysmic event known as a tidal disruption event (TDE). Thanks to cutting-edge technology from NASA and Ohio State University, we now have a front-row seat to this awe-inspiring cosmic drama, captured in unprecedented detail.
In January 2025, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), a network of robotic telescopes operated by Ohio State University, detected a rare TDE in the Volans constellation, approximately 375 million light-years away. The light from this event, dubbed ASASSN-19bt, has only now reached us, offering a glimpse into a violent encounter that unfolded 375 million years ago. The culprit? A supermassive black hole, estimated to be 6 million times the mass of our sun, wielding gravity so powerful it shredded a star into streams of stellar material.
A TDE is a delicate balance of physics and chance. If a star strays too close to a black hole, it is swallowed whole, leaving no trace. If it’s too far, it may be flung away into the vastness of space. But when a star is at just the right distance, the black hole’s gravitational forces stretch and compress it in a process called spaghettification, ripping it apart into glowing streams of matter. Some of this material is hurled into space, while the rest spirals into the black hole’s inescapable grasp.
Capturing such an event is no small feat. “Imagine standing on a skyscraper, dropping a marble, and trying to get it to fall through a manhole cover,” said Chris Kochanek, a professor of astronomy at Ohio State University. “It’s harder than that.” Yet, advancements in technology made this extraordinary observation possible.
Launched in July 2018, NASA’s TESS satellite is a powerhouse of astronomical discovery. Equipped with four wide-field cameras, TESS surveys vast swaths of the sky—400 times larger than the area covered by the iconic Kepler telescope. Its ability to monitor the same region for days at a time allowed scientists to catch ASASSN-19bt just days after it began to brighten, a feat rarely achieved with previous TDEs.
The research team tracked the event for 42 days, observing it every 30 minutes in TESS’s continuous viewing zone—an unprecedented level of detail. “Only a handful of TDEs have been discovered before they reached peak brightness,” said Thomas Holoien, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institute for Science. “This one was found early, and we have more data than ever before possible for one of these events.”
The data collected from ASASSN-19bt is a goldmine for astronomers. For the first time, scientists observed a brief cooling and fading in the galaxy’s vicinity before the event’s temperature stabilized and its brightness surged to a peak 37 days later. This unusual “blip” challenges existing models of TDEs, which were once thought to follow a uniform pattern. “It turns out astronomers just needed the ability to make more detailed observations,” said Patrick Vallely, a co-author of the study published in The Astrophysical Journal
This groundbreaking dataset not only deepens our understanding of TDEs but also paves the way for detecting future events. By analyzing the intricate details of ASASSN-19bt, scientists hope to unravel the mysteries of how black holes interact with stars and shape the cosmos.
Thanks to NASA, we can now visualize this epic clash through a computer-generated video, bringing the terrifying beauty of a star’s destruction to life. The supermassive black hole’s gravitational might tears the star apart, creating glowing tendrils of stellar material that light up the cosmos. This rare glimpse into the universe’s most violent processes reminds us of the immense forces at play beyond our world.
As astronomers continue to study ASASSN-19bt, they are unlocking new insights into the nature of black holes and the stars they consume. “We have so much more to learn about how TDEs work,” Holoien said. “Capturing one at such an early stage with TESS’s exquisite observations was crucial.”
This extraordinary discovery invites us all to marvel at the universe’s grandeur—and its unrelenting power. Witness the spectacle of a star torn apart by a black hole, a cosmic event that redefines what we believe is possible in the vastness of space.