Astronomers Astonished by Largest Explosion Since the Big Bang

You've heard of how mighty supernovas are, or of the ungodly amounts of energy released by gamma ray bursts.

But astronomers have just discovered a type of cosmic blast that puts all those to shame. They're called "extreme nuclear transients" (ENTs) — and they're quite literally the most powerful explosion witnessed since the dawn of time.

What produces ENTs is appropriately catastrophic: a star, at least three times as massive as our Sun, being obliterated by a supermassive black hole.

"We've observed stars getting ripped apart as tidal disruption events for over a decade, but these ENTs are different beasts, reaching brightnesses nearly ten times greater than what we typically see," Jason Hinkle, lead author of a new study published in the journal Science Advances, and a researcher at