A mysterious black hole is pointing at Earth sending an intense blast of visible light straight towards us, experts say.
Scientists believe the light burst happened when a black hole suddenly started eating a nearby star – billions of years ago.
This would have sent energy shooting through the universe and straight towards Earth.
But the light came from incredibly far away and started on its journey across space when the universe was around a third of the age it is now.
Astronomers were able to spot the black hole by using visible light for the very first time.
This is because the light jet is pointing almost directly towards Earth, making it possible to see.
Scientists turned some of the world's strongest telescopes towards it after experts first spotted the intriguing burst of light in February.
The black hole seemed to give off more light than 1,000 trillion suns, and happened in a part of the sky where no such light had been observed before.
This sparked excitement among the astronomers who were watching.
A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot escape when it goes near one and is typically destroyed.
Scientists believe that the light exploded when a star got too close to the black hole and got torn to shreds.
This phenomenon is known as a tidal disruption event, or a TDE.
In around one per cent of cases, the stars send plasma and radiation out of each side of the black hole, known as a jetted-TDE.
The rare event has been compared to toothpaste spurting out of either end of a tube when squeezed.
But scientists know even less about how they happen with hardly any sightings.
In a bid to understand more, astronomers keep watch over the skies for signs hoping that they can turn advanced telescopes towards them when they happen.
This is what happened in February, when a team saw the incredible blast.
The findings come from the study 'A very luminous jet from the disruption of a star by a massive black hole’ which is published in the journal Nature.
