When you picture a black hole, you probably picture in the center of a galaxy with matter swirling toward it. You're not wrong but that is why the exception proves the rule.

A recent study detected a surprising tidal disruption event where a black hole outside the center of a galaxy is tearing apart a star. Even stranger and defiance of black hole lore, the delayed and powerful radio outbursts suggest previously unknown processes in how black holes eject material over time. Designated AT 2024tvd, it is to-date the fastest-evolving radio emission ever observed from a black-hole-driven stellar disruption.

Tidal disruption events occur when a star ventures too close to a massive black hole and is torn apart by its immense gravity but this is the first detected cast of a black hole located 2,600 light-years from its host galaxy’s core, which means supermassive black holes can lurk in unexpected places. Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Large Array observations revealed the unusually rapid evolution of the radio emission.


Artistic visualization. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/P.Vosteen

The data showed two distinct radio flares evolving faster than any tidal disruption events observed before. These results indicate that powerful outflows of material were launched from the vicinity of the black hole not immediately after the stellar destruction, but months later, suggesting delayed and complex processes in the aftermath of the disruption.

Detailed modeling points to at least two separate ejection events, months apart — clear evidence that black holes can episodically “reawaken” after periods of apparent inactivity.