A groundbreaking study recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has revealed an unprecedented cosmic event: a black hole devouring a massive star, unleashing an explosion of energy many times more powerful than typical supernovae. The event, nicknamed Whippet and officially designated AT2024wpp, was witnessed by astronomers using cutting-edge telescopes and space observatories, including the Zwicky Transient Facility and NASA’s Swift satellite.
A Rare and Awe-Inspiring Phenomenon
The discovery of the Whippet event has stunned the scientific community. According to Associate Professor of Astrophysics Daniel Perley, lead author of the paper published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the event marks a significant milestone in our understanding of black holes and stellar destruction. “We discovered what we think is a black hole merging with a massive companion star, shredding it into a disk that feeds the black hole. It’s a rare and awe-inspiring phenomenon,” Perley stated at the American Astronomical Society’s annual meeting in January 2026.
Illustration of a luminous fast blue optical transient. [Adapted from NASA, ESA, NSF’s NOIRLab, Mark Garlick, Mahdi Zamani]
This cataclysmic event occurred when the immense gravitational forces of a black hole tore apart a massive star, creating a disk of star material that was consumed by the black hole. The resulting explosion released an extraordinary amount of energy, 400 billion times more than the sun’s output, far exceeding the power of any known supernova. This phenomenon is referred to as a Tidal Disruption Event (TDE), though the scale of this event is unprecedented.
A New Type of Cosmic Explosion
Tidal Disruption Events are not new to astronomers, but the Whippet event has taken this phenomenon to a completely new level. Perley emphasized the magnitude of the event, stating, “Even though we suspected what it was, it was still extraordinary. This was many times more energetic than any similar event and more than any known explosion powered by the collapse of a star.” While typical TDEs involve the destruction of a star by a black hole, none have been observed to release as much energy as the Whippet. This discovery opens new questions about the violent interactions between black holes and stars, as well as the mechanisms that drive such powerful explosions.
X-ray behavior of AT2024wpp. The top plot demonstrates the hardening of the spectral index (i.e., shifting toward higher energies) around the peak at 50 days. [Nayana A. J. et al. 2025]
One of the most striking features of the event is its classification as a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT), a type of stellar explosion that had been poorly understood until now. According to a study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, LFBOTs are characterized by their extreme luminosity, blue color, and the emission of X-rays, all of which were observed in the Whippet event. This new classification provides astronomers with valuable tools to identify and study similar events in the future, potentially offering new insights into the behavior of black holes.
The Role of Telescopes and Satellites in the Discovery
The discovery of the Whippet event was made possible by the combined efforts of several observatories and telescopes, both ground-based and in space. The Zwicky Transient Facility at Palomar Observatory in California first detected the transient event when its light reached Earth. Within a day, astronomers had already begun gathering additional data using the Liverpool Telescope in the Canary Islands and NASA’s Swift satellite. These observations confirmed the unusual characteristics of the event, identifying it as an LFBOT.
Perley and his team also received support from other collaborators, including R. Michael Rich at UCLA and Yu-Jing Qin at Caltech, who helped confirm the distance of the event and the intensity of the energy being released.
“Not only do these events help us identify black holes,” Perley added, “they provide a new way to identify where black holes occur and how they form and grow, and the physics of how this happens.”
The Whippet event marks a new frontier in black hole research, showcasing the power of modern observational tools in capturing such rare and spectacular phenomena.