Astronomers have spotted a supermassive black hole that couldn’t handle its cosmic dinner, according to a University of Oregon researcher, following observations of what is on track to be the longest recorded emission of energy left over from a shredded star.
For the last four years, and projected not to peak until 2027, the amusingly named black hole, “Jetty McJetface,” or more technically, AT2018hyz, is like no emission jet ever seen before.
According to the researchers involved, the real-world emissions it produces eclipse the power estimates of the famous fictional “Death Star” space station from the Star Wars films, which was capable of destroying entire planets.
An Unusual Black Hole
Yvette Cendes is the University of Oregon physicist who led the work, which began during her postdoctoral research at Harvard and has now been featured in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal. At first, when the jet was observed by a fellow astronomer using an optical telescope, the event appeared to be a rather ordinary tidal disruption event, in which a black hole consumes a star.
It was only later that Cendes noticed the black hole was still emitting tremendous amounts of energy.
“This is really unusual,” Cendes said. “I’d be hard-pressed to think of anything rising like this over such a long period of time.”
Tidal disruption events, named for the same gravitational forces that power Earth’s ocean tides, aren’t uncommon occurrences themselves. Many times in the past, astronomers have observed a star being shredded by a black hole’s gravitational field and crossing its event horizon, a process known as
“spaghettification.”
What is unusual, however, is for the black hole to maintain such a strong outpouring of energy for such an extended period.
The Plot Thickens
Cendes initially reported the torrent of radio waves in 2022 in The Astrophysical Journal, but since then, things have grown stranger. Following that initial publication, the researchers continued monitoring the black hole with radio telescopes located in New Mexico and South Africa. The energy they have observed is now 50 times brighter than in their 2019 observations of the same black hole.
According to Cendes and her team’s calculations, the radio waves are exiting the black hole in a single jet. This may explain why it took some time to detect them after the initial tidal disruption event, as they may not have been aimed at the Earth. In 2027, when the event’s emissions are expected to peak, the team will be better able to discern exactly what is happening.
The amount of energy the team calculated that was flowing out of the black hole was astounding. In astronomical terms, it was one of the most powerful events ever detected in the universe, comparable to a gamma ray burst.
Looking to the realm of fiction for comparisons, the team likened their numbers to fan calculations of the Death Star’s power capabilities in the Star Wars films. Jetty McJetface eclipsed it by a factor of close to 100 trillion.
Continuing Black Hole Research
Exactly how powerful the black hole will become by the time it peaks remains to be seen. Cendes and her team will continue to track the object as it reaches its apex. They aren’t stopping there, though.
They also plan to keep an eye out for other black holes exhibiting this behavior, hypothesizing that it is so unusual because no one has previously looked for events displaying such awesome power. Cedes noted that one reason for this may be the extremely competitive nature of telescope time.
“If you have an explosion, why would you expect there to be something years after the explosion happened when you didn’t see something before?” Cendes said.
Cendes told The Debrief that the team is currently monitoring a candidate for another black hole, which could behave similarly to Jetty McJetface. The team is currently conducting operations with the VLA, MeerKAT, ATCA, Chandra, and Newton-XMM in X-ray, and even beyond that, they have collaborators who are presently searching at millimeter and optical wavelengths at other facilities.
The paper, “Continued Rapid Radio Brightening of the Tidal Disruption Event AT2018hyz,” appeared in The Astrophysical Journal on February 5, 2026.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.