Now, two teams of researchers have identified its source: a black hole feasting in the distant universe.

Black holes are famously dark; their gravitational pull is so strong that even light cannot escape their event horizons.

AT 2022cmc is the brightest and most distant tidal disruption event yet-known; its source is a supermassive black hole about 8.5 billion light-years away.

Tidal disruption events are useful for astrophysicists; they can reveal how fast black holes are spinning and the rate at which the behemoth objects are feeding.

They also can reveal how supermassive black holes grow and shape the galaxies that ensconce them.

Comparing the light from this event to other luminous happenings in the cosmos, the teams determined that a jetted tidal disruption event was the sole possible culprit.