Astronomers using the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) instruments, the U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array (NSF VLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have revealed a dense cocoon of gas around one of the most extreme cosmic explosions ever seen, showing that a ravenous black hole ripped apart a massive star and then lit up its surroundings with powerful X-rays.