Spinning black hole swallowing star explains superluminous event

(ESO) An extraordinarily brilliant point of light seen in a distant galaxy, and dubbed ASASSN-15lh, was thought to be the brightest supernova ever seen. But new observations from several observatories, including ESO, have now cast doubt on this classification. Instead, a group of astronomers propose that the source was an even more extreme and very rare event -- a rapidly spinning black hole ripping apart a passing star that came too close.