Astronomers for the first time have observed a supermassive black hole waking up and setting the heart of its host galaxy alight, the European Southern Observatory said on Tuesday.
The galaxy 300 million light-years from Earth in the Virgo constellation had been quiet for decades until late 2019, when it suddenly began to shine brighter than ever before.
The center of the galaxy — where a supermassive black hole is believed to be — since then has been radiating a variety of rays.
Photo: AFP / European Southern Observatory / M. Kornmesser
“This behavior is unprecedented,” Paula Sanchez Saez, an European Southern Observatory astronomer and first author of a new study in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, said in a statement.
The “most tangible option” to explain this brightening is that the astronomers were watching “the activation of a massive black hole in real time,” study coauthor Lorena Hernandez Garcia said.
Most galaxies — including our own Milky Way — are believed to have a supermassive black hole at their center.
These cosmic behemoths are by definition invisible — not even light can escape their gravity.
The only way to observe black holes is when they destroy something huge that lets off light in its death throes, such as a star that wandered too close being torn apart.
“These giant monsters usually are sleeping,” study coauthor Claudio Ricci said.
However, for galaxy SDSS1335+0728, “we were able to observe the awakening of the massive black hole, [which] suddenly started to feast on gas available in its surroundings, becoming very bright,” Ricci said.
Initial observations indicate that the black hole has 1.5 million times more mass than the sun, enough for it to be classified as a supermassive black hole, but it is still on the lighter side, as the true heavyweights easily exceed 1 billion times the sun’s mass.
The international team of astronomers is analyzing data from telescopes, hoping to determine whether the black hole’s activity is short term — perhaps caused by a star being ripped apart — or whether it would continue for a long time.
“This is something that could happen also to our own Sgr A* [Sagittarius A*],” the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Hernandez Garcia said.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
Pakistani police yesterday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her TikTok account. In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces. “The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said. Investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor,” the police report said. The man was subsequently arrested. The girl’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” said police in
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
RSS