A death-defying star survived destruction by a ravenous supermassive black hole in a tidal disruption event, and came back to let the cosmic titan take another bite!
Astrophysicists don't know if direct-collapse black holes are real. They were hypothesized to explain how the Universe could contain supermassive black holes (SMBH) so early. They don't require a stellar progenitor, nor do they require hierarchical merging. Instead, they collapse due to instability in a gas cloud, much like stars do.

