Wandering Black Hole Destroys a Star, Brightening a Galaxy's Edge

An orphaned supermassive black hole drifting at the edge of its galaxy tore apart a star in a tidal disruption event, producing a brilliant ultraviolet flare that outshone the host for months. Detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility and followed up with SOAR and Swift, the event occurred about 750 million light-years away and involved a black hole roughly 30,000 light-years from the galaxy's center, similar in mass to Sagittarius A*. The finding, likely from past galaxy mergers, suggests wandering black holes may be more common and can illuminate how galaxies and their black holes grow.