Closest Black Hole Devouring a Star Detected by Astronomers

MIT astronomers have discovered a new tidal disruption event (TDE) shining brightly in infrared, which is one of the first times scientists have directly identified a TDE at infrared wavelengths. The new outburst happens to be the closest TDE observed to date, found in NGC 7392, a galaxy that is about 137 million light-years from Earth. The scientists suspect that traditional surveys missed the nearby TDE because that light was obscured by an enormous amount of dust that absorbed the radiation and gave off heat in the form of infrared energy.