The Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a sneaky black hole that betrayed its presence in a Tidal Disruption Event (TDE), where a hapless star was ripped apart and swallowed in a spectacular burst of radiation. Unlike previously observed TDEs, which took place in the center of a galaxy, this event was thousands of light-years from its galactic center. This is the first offset TDE captured by optical sky surveys, and it opens up the entire possibility of uncovering this elusive population of wandering black holes with future sky surveys.

The TDE black hole is far enough away from the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole that they are not gravitationally bound to each other as a binary pair. And, astronomers don’t know if the roaming black hole is coming or going. Did it fall into the galaxy as a result of a merger between two galaxies? Or was it kicked out of a “wrestling ring” where three supermassive black hole dynamically interacted?