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Relativistic Jet from Stellar Cannibalism Event Emerges as Cosmic Powerhouse

February 5, 2026 — An international team of astronomers has documented what may constitute one of the most energetically prodigious events in contemporary observational astronomy: a relativistic jet emanating from a supermassive black hole that consumed a wayward star, producing energy outputs so staggering that researchers have been compelled to invoke fictional comparisons—specifically, the planet-destroying Death Star from the Star Wars franchise.

The Genesis of AT2018hyz

The event, designated AT2018hyz, originated when stellar dynamics brought an unfortunate star into catastrophic proximity with a supermassive black hole inhabiting an otherwise quiescent galaxy approximately 665 million light-years distant. The ensuing tidal disruption event—wherein differential gravitational forces across the star’s radius induced fatal elongation and fragmentation—initially presented as unremarkable among the roughly one hundred TDEs documented to date.

Dr. Yvette Cendes, a radio astronomer at the University of Oregon and the study’s lead author, emphasized the seemingly mundane nature of the initial observations: “There was nothing from that initial discovery that made us think something like this was going to happen years later.”

Emergence of an Exceptional Phenomenon

The situation underwent a dramatic transformation in 2022, when the black hole began producing an intensely luminous relativistic jet—a collimated stream of charged particles accelerated to velocities approaching that of light. The jet, which Cendes has colloquially christened “Jetty McJetface” in homage to the infamous Boaty McBoatface episode, has subsequently brightened to fifty times its initial luminosity and continues to intensify.

“Planets are going to be destroyed for the first few light-years,” Cendes remarked, while acknowledging uncertainty regarding the precise spatial extent of the jet’s destructive influence.

Quantifying the Extraordinary

The statistical rarity of this observation cannot be overstated: relativistic jets accompany merely one percent of documented tidal disruption events. The divergence in energy output between jet-producing and non-jet TDEs is equally striking—while conventional spherical outflows might release approximately 2 × 10⁵⁰ ergs, the relativistic jet scenario could yield 5 × 10⁵⁵ ergs, a difference of five orders of magnitude.

The persistent brightening observed since 2022 finds potential explanation in the jet’s geometric evolution. Initially highly collimated with a narrow opening angle, the jet may not have been oriented directly toward Earth. As jets characteristically broaden over time, an increasing proportion of the emission enters our line of sight, producing the observed luminosity increase.

Cendes anticipates the phenomenon will achieve peak brightness in 2027, potentially attaining double its current luminosity before commencing a gradual decline.

Implications for Future Research

The imminent deployment of the Square Kilometer Array promises to furnish astronomers with instrumentation of sufficient sensitivity and survey capability to identify numerous additional examples of such extreme phenomena, potentially illuminating the physical mechanisms underlying relativistic jet formation in tidal disruption events—a process that remains incompletely understood despite active investigation.

The research appears in the February 5, 2026 edition of The Astrophysical Journal.

Vocabulary Help 📚

Grammar Focus 🎯

Academic Hedging: - “what may constitute one of the most energetically prodigious events” - “potentially illuminating the physical mechanisms”

Academic writing uses hedging to avoid overclaiming and acknowledge uncertainty.

Nominalization for Academic Register: - “the ensuing tidal disruption event” (instead of “what happened next when the star was disrupted”) - “the persistent brightening observed” (instead of “the fact that it keeps getting brighter”)

Converting verbs and adjectives to nouns creates a more formal, academic tone.

Source: Space.com