Washington, June 17 : Some 3.8 billion years ago, a massive black hole at the centre of a distant galaxy ripped apart a star that wandered too close.

Research led by astronomers at the University of Warwick has now spotted evidence of that encounter.

The event created such a powerful cosmic blast that the high energy X-rays and gamma-rays persisted at an extremely bright level for weeks after the event, with bright flares arising when further chunks of the star fell into the black hole.

The extreme brightness of this event comes from the fact that it illuminated only a small fraction of the sky, pointing a jet of light towards the Milky Way.

“Despite the power of this the cataclysmic event we still only happen to see this event because our solar system happened to be looking right down the barrel of this jet of energy,” said Dr Andrew Levan, lead researcher on the paper.

The new research clearly establishes that the source of this event - (known now as Sw 1644+57) is right at the heart of far away galaxy, 3.8 billion light years away, at a spot, which would be in the constellation Draco.

"The only explanation that so far fits the size, intensity, time scale, and level of fluctuation of the observed event, is that a massive black at the very centre of that galaxy has pulled in a large star and ripped it apart by tidal disruption. The spinning black hole then created the two jets one of which pointed straight to earth," said Levan.

The study was recently published in the Journal Science. (ANI)