Supermassive black hole seen ‘awakening’ for 1st time
“This behaviour 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 co-author Lorena Hernandez Garcia said.
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‘Supermassive’ black hole at the centre of our galaxy viewed for the first time
Most galaxies – including our own Milky Way – are believed to have a supermassive black hole at their centre.
These cosmic behemoths are by definition invisible – not even light can escape the pull of their awesome power. 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 co-author Claudio Ricci explained.
But for the 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”, the astrophysicist added.
Initial observations indicate 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 a billion times the sun’s mass.
The international team of astronomers is analysing data from a number of telescopes hoping to determine whether the black hole’s activity is temporary – perhaps caused by a star being ripped apart – or whether it will continue to be active for a long time.
“This is something that could happen also to our own Sgr A*,” the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Hernandez Garcia said.
But fortunately for us, our own black hole remains fast asleep.