In December 2019, astronomers were stunned when the core of a relatively quiet galaxy 300 million light-years away suddenly lit up. Now, we have more very surprising information. We analyze the research that was published in the sector magazine Astronomy & Astrophysicals.
After seeing the family tree of black holes, this time we will get to know “up close” the gigantic black hole located at the center of the galaxy SDSS1335+0728which was set in motion and began to devour material from the surrounding space.
It became increasingly brighter, shining to this day in infrared and ultraviolet light. Furthermore, recently and precisely in February this year, it even started emitting X-rays. We are talking specifically about a black hole with 1.5 million solar masses.
“The most tangible option to explain this phenomenon is that we are seeing how the galaxy’s core is starting to show… activity. If so, this would be it the first time we see the activation of a massive black hole in real time“, says astronomer Lorena Hernández García of the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS) and the University of Valparaíso in Chile.
We must not forget that black holes can only access material that is within their gravitational reach. If there is nothing nearby, they remain relatively silent or quiescent. A concrete example could be the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, which is not classified (fortunately) as active.
The evidence obtained so far also suggests that supermassive black holes can change their activity levels. But see the transition from a quiescent phase to an active phase it is truly a more unique than rare event.
“In the case of SDSS1335+0728, we were able to observe the awakening of the massive black holewhich suddenly began to feed on the gas available in its surroundings, becoming very bright“, explains astronomer Claudio Ricci of the Diego Portales University in Chile.
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SDSS1335+0728 could in fact represent a practically perfect model to better understand similar phenomena. Since we don’t know what causes a supermassive black hole to reignite, studying the galaxy could help astronomers develop predictive models that could reveal the probability of this happening elsewheresuch as, for example, in our Milky Way.
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