While black holes and toddlers don’t seem to have much in common, they are remarkably similar in one aspect: Both are messy eaters, generating ample evidence that a meal has taken place.
But whereas one might leave behind droppings of pasta or splatters of yogurt, the other creates an aftermath of mind-boggling proportions. When a black hole gobbles up a star, it produces what astronomers call a “tidal disruption event.” The shredding of the hapless star is accompanied by an outburst of radiation that can outshine the combined light of every star in the black hole’s host galaxy for months, even years.
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