Scientists have spotted the brightest flare yet from a supermassive black hole that shines with the light of 10 trillion suns.

These bursts of light and energy can come from things like tangled-up magnetic fields or hiccups in the heated gas disks surrounding black holes. The flares help illuminate researchers' understanding of the black holes within.

The flare came from a supermassive black hole that's 10 billion light years away, making the flash the most distant one observed so far. It hails from a time when the universe was rather young. A light year is nearly 6 trillion miles.

The latest cosmic display was spotted in 2018 by a camera at the Palomar Observatory in California. It took about three months to shine at peak brightness and has been decaying in the years since.

It lik

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