Astronomers from Queen's University in Belfast have uncovered evidence of a supermassive black hole devouring a star that wandered too close.

The astronomers are part of an international team and their discovery has been published in the international science journal "Nature".

Supermassive black holes can be found in the centres of most galaxies and weigh millions to billions times more than the Sun.

They lie quietly until a victim, such as a star, wanders close enough to get ripped apart by their powerful gravitational clutches.

Using ground and space-based telescopes, a team of astronomers led by Suvi Gezari of The John Hopkins University in Baltimore has identified the victim in this case as a star rich in helium gas.

The star resides in a galaxy 2.7 billion light-years away.

The study gives insights into the harsh environment around black holes and the types of stars swirling around them.

Speaking about the discovery, Professor Stephen Smartt of Queen's Astrophysics Research Centre in the School of Maths and Physics said: ''Astronomers have spotted these stellar 'murders' before, but this is the first time they can identify the victim.''

He said that Suvi Gezari alerted them to something unusual caught by a NASA spacecraft.

To find this one event, the team monitored hundreds of thousands of galaxies in ultraviolet light and in visible light.

The team was looking for a bright flare in ultraviolet light from the nucleus of a galaxy with a previously dormant black hole.

They found one in June 2012 and continued to monitor the flare as it reached peak brightness a month later, and then slowly began to fade over the next 12 months.

The brightening event was similar to that of a supernova, but the rise of the peak was much slower, taking nearly one and a half months.