Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered the first direct evidence of a wandering supermassive black hole in action, tearing a star to shreds in a tidal disruption event (TDE) 600 million light-years away.

Using NASA 's Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories, astronomers found the cosmic object in an unexpected place. Rather than sitting dead center in its galaxy like most supermassive black holes, this one was thousands of light-years away from the core — 2,600, in fact.

Dubbed AT2024tvd, the burst of radiation from this " tidal disruption event " (TDE) was also picked up by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array in New Mexico and Caltech's Palomar Observatory.