Recently scientists saw a big flash of light that was coming from a large spiral galaxy located 215 Million light years away from us. Scientists used various telescopes like VLT and studied this part of galaxy for over 6 months.
They've found that it's the last screams of a Star as it is being torn apart by a Black Hole. The star’s atmosphere was being pulled away stretched and compressed into thin streams by the Black Hole. The material heated to enormous temperatures generating the flashes of light with velocity ~10,000 km per second.