When a star gets too close to a black hole, sparks fly. And, potentially, so do subatomic particles called neutrinos. A dramatic light show results when a supermassive black hole rips apart a wayward star. Now, for the second time, a high energy neutrinos has been spotted that may have come from one of these “tidal disruption events,” researchers report in a study accepted in Physical Review Letters . These lightweight particles, which have no electric charge, careen across the cosmos and can be detected upon their arrival at Earth. The origins of such zippy neutrinos are a big mystery in physics. To create them, conditions must be just right to drastically accelerate charged particles, which would then produce neutrinos. Scientists have begun lining up likely candidates for cosmic particle accelerators. In 2020, researchers reported the first neutrino linked to a tidal disruption event ( SN: 5/26/20 ). Other neutrinos have been tied to active g...