Black Hole Disruption of Massive Star AT2024wpp Releases Record 400 Billion Solar Luminosities

Daniel Perley’s team at Liverpool John Moores University, with Anna Ho at Cornell, identified AT2024wpp within a day of its optical rise. Swift and Liverpool Telescope data showed the characteristic blue color, rapid X-ray brightening, and temperature exceeding 10^5 K. Distance measurements from UCLA and Caltech placed the peak output at roughly 400 billion solar luminosities, far above any supernova or prior LFBOT. Multi-wavelength coverage established that stellar debris formed an accretion disk whose wind drove a 0.2c shock into previously ejected circumstellar material.

Keck, Magellan, and VLT spectra revealed no identifiable lines in the first month, while radio and millimeter fluxes tracked the shock until it abruptly faded after six months—consistent with the shock leaving a finite bubble of pre-explosion wind. This morphology matches scaled-up versions of lower-energy LFBOTs reported between 2018 and 2023 but supplies the first direct evidence that the circumstellar cavity boundary can quench the forward shock on observable timescales.

The event supplies a new route to map dormant black holes in star-forming galaxies and tests whether the most massive stars can shed enough material to survive partial disruption. It also highlights a selection bias: many historical “energetic supernovae” may have been unrecognized TDEs once deeper X-ray and radio follow-up became routine.

Continued monitoring with Chandra and the VLA over the next 12–18 months will test whether residual disk emission re-brightens or whether the system fades below detectability, directly constraining remnant mass and accretion efficiency.