Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole that shattered a passing star. Not only was this catastrophe closer to Earth than ever before, but its location and light spread were unusual, indicating a large invisible population of these events. Black holes are notorious for swallowing anything that comes too close, including stars. But that’s hardly a small crush – black holes eat a lot more dirt than you might expect, flexing objects and spewing matter all over the place. When stars are on the menu, they emit bright bursts of light that can be seen in space, which astronomers call the Tidal Disruption Event (TDE).

These TDEs are believed to be quite common, with around 100 detected so far, but the new detection, called WTP14adbjsh, is significant for several reasons. First of all, it’s the closest event we’ve seen at a distance of 137 million light years. It may not seem very close, but the previous record holder was 200 million light-years away, and many were much further away.

It also came from a different type of galaxy than usual. Most TDEs are found in relatively quiet galaxies, but WTP14adbjsh occurs in a galaxy that is actively forming new stars. As there is more and more food for black holes, it would make sense for such galaxies to regularly host TDEs, but surprisingly these detections remain elusive.

However, the new TDE gives clues as to why this might happen. The death throes of these stars are usually bright in optical and X-ray light, but WTP14adbjsh did not stand out at these wavelengths – instead, it was bright in the infrared. Star-forming galaxies tend to be dusty places, so normal optical and X-ray light can well pass through the infrared curtain while being blocked.

Scientists were not specifically looking for TDE. Instead, they studied the short-lived signals in data obtained by the NEOWISE mission, which scanned the sky in infrared. In doing so, they observed a celestial flare that began in late 2014, peaked in 2015, and then began to fade again. The clear light curve and timing told the team it was a TDE, after eliminating other possibilities such as supernovae.

The discovery may shed light on why these events appear much rarer than they should have been – astronomers were looking for them completely wrong.

“Finding this near TDE means statistically there must be a large population of these events that conventional methods have not seen,” said Christos Panagiotou, lead author of the study. “If we want to get a complete picture of black holes and their galaxies, we should try to find them in the infrared.”