Astronomers detect "Scary Barbie" supermassive black hole ripping apart huge star in "terrifying" spaghettification event

Astronomers have detected an impressive supermassive black hole devouring a star – and they've nicknamed it "Scary Barbie," in part because of its terrifying power. Scientists called it one of the "most luminous, energetic, long-lasting transient objects" found lurking in a forgotten corner of the night sky.  

Bhagya Subrayan, a Purdue University graduate student, said researchers believe the black hole "pulled in a star and ripped it apart," in a brutal process called "spaghettification." The object, documented in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, was assigned a random designation, ZTF20abrbeie, leading to the creation of its trendy nickname.

While the "outlier" death event lay undetected for years among other telescopic data, a Purdue lab's artificial intelligence engine — the Recommender Engine For Intelligent Transient Tracking (REFITT) — helped uncover the "terrifying" anomaly.