Einstein Probe may have caught a black hole tearing apart a white dwarf for the first time
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An extraordinary high-energy event detected deep in space is giving astronomers a rare opportunity to study some of the Universe's most extreme phenomena.
On July 2, 2025, the China-led Einstein Probe (EP) space telescope spotted an exceptionally bright X-ray source during a routine survey of the sky. The object's brightness changed rapidly, making it immediately stand out from typical cosmic X-ray sources. The unusual detection prompted observatories around the world to begin follow-up observations.
The research was coordinated by the EP Science Center at the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), with scientists from research institutions in China and several other countries contributing to the effort. Researchers from the Department of Physics at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), who are key members of the Einstein Probe scientific collaboration, helped interpret the observations. Their analysis suggests the event may represent an intermediate-mass black hole tearing apart and consuming a white dwarf star.
If confirmed, it would provide the first direct observational evidence of this type of black hole feeding event. The results were published as the cover article in Science Bulletin. The discovery relied on the Einstein Probe's two complementary X-ray instruments.
During its routine survey on July 2, 2025, the mission's Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT), which combines advanced lobster-eye micro-pore optics with a very wide field of view and high sensitivity, detected a rapidly changing X-ray source that was later designated EP250702a (also known as GRB 250702B). At nearly the same time, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected several gamma-ray bursts coming from the same region of the sky. Scientists realized the event was far more unusual after reviewing earlier WXT observations.
The telescope had already detected steady X-ray emission from the same location roughly a day before the gamma-ray bursts appeared, a sequence rarely associated with powerful cosmic explosions. Around 15 hours after the initial detection, the source erupted into a series of intense X-ray flares. At its brightest, it reached a luminosity of approximately 3 × 1049 erg s-1, making it one of the brightest instantaneous outbursts ever recorded in the Universe.
"This early X-ray signal is crucial," said Dr. Dongyue Li, first author of the paper from the National Astronomical Observatories of China. "It tells us this was not an ordinary gamma-ray burst."
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