{"id":417926,"date":"2026-01-18T19:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T19:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/417926\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T19:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T19:43:10","slug":"supermassive-black-hole-spotted-awaken-from-100-million-year-slumber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/417926\/","title":{"rendered":"Supermassive black hole spotted awaken from 100 million-year slumber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers have observed a long-dormant black hole being \u201creborn\u201d in a distant galaxy. Located at the heart of galaxy J1007+3540, the black hole is almost one million light-years across, and its rebirth has been likened to a \u201ccosmic volcano\u201d erupting.<\/p>\n

According to researchers,<\/a> the black hole was dormant for around 100 million years before its dramatic resurgence. Interestingly, the team behind the discovery notes that they can see the old \u201cdead\u201d jets from the black hole alongside its new \u201creborn\u201d ones.<\/p>\n

These plasma jets, the team notes, can be seen superimposed on top of one another when viewing the black hole from afar. They liken this to fresh lava flows over older, much more ancient ones. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like watching a cosmic volcano erupt again after ages of calm \u2013 except this one is big enough to carve out structures stretching nearly a million light-years across space\u201d, \u00a0lead researcher Shobha Kumar explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis dramatic layering of young jets inside older, exhausted lobes is the signature of an episodic AGN \u2013 a galaxy whose central engine keeps turning on and off over cosmic timescales,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Rebirth of a hungry giant<\/p>\n

What makes it special is that all this is happening inside a dense galaxy cluster, where hot gas is crushing, bending, and distorting the jets as they try to escape.<\/p>\n

It is important to note that most large galaxies appear to have a supermassive black hole at their center. Here gas falls into them, and some of it gets flung out along the black hole\u2019s poles. <\/p>\n

This forms jets of magnetised plasma, and these jets glow strongly in radio wavelengths. However, the team explains, when the fuel runs out, these jets switch off, as appears to have happened in the past with this black hole<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For some reason, the black hole appears to have started \u201cfeeding\u201d again and has begun to release bright new jets of material. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This, the team explains, is an example of an on\u2013off behaviour, which is called an episodic Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN).<\/p>\n

When observing the black hole using radio telescopes (like the Low Frequency Array\u00a0and the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope), the team explains that you can readily see the inner bright jets of new activity. You can also see the older, more faded \u201clobes\u201d of older exhaust jets. <\/p>\n

This, the team explains, results in the older plasma \u201ccocooning\u201d the new jets. The environment of the galaxy (and black hole) is also interesting, the research team notes. <\/p>\n

J1007+3540 sits inside a massive galaxy cluster filled with extremely hot gas, enormous pressure, and strong drag forces. To this end, this is not empty space, it\u2019s more like trying to fire a flamethrower underwater.<\/p>\n

Insight into the nature of galaxies<\/p>\n

Because of this, the new jets appear to be being crushed and bent. Because of the surrounding gas, one jet lobe is compressed and squashed.<\/p>\n

This results in plasma flows curving backward instead of expanding freely, and old plasma is pushed sideways, forming long, wispy tails.<\/p>\n

This distortion tells astronomers which plasma is old, which is new, and how violent the environment really is. The discovery is not just interesting in and of itself, but it also tells astronomers that black holes are able to turn on and off repeatedly throughout their lives.<\/p>\n

It also shows us that plasma jets released by them don\u2019t evolve in isolation. Their shape appears to be heavily influenced by their surroundings. The observation also serves as proof that the evolution of galaxies is a chaotic, episodic, and generally violent affair.<\/p>\n

\u201cJ1007+3540 is one of the clearest and most spectacular examples of episodic AGN with jet-cluster interaction, where the surrounding hot gas bends, compresses, and distorts the jets,\u201d \u00a0study co-author Dr. Sabyasachi Pal added.<\/p>\n

You can view the study for yourself in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have observed a long-dormant black hole being \u201creborn\u201d in a distant galaxy. Located at the heart of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-417926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}