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In radio images of J1007+3540, a bright inner streak sits inside older, dimmer debris, showing two eruptive episodes.<\/p>\n
By tracing those nested layers, Shobha Kumari at Midnapore City College<\/a> identified a central engine that had switched back on.<\/p>\n Her team found the newer jet had not erased older wreckage, which stayed visible as a fading outer cocoon.<\/p>\n That layering preserved earlier history and exposed how the surrounding cluster kept shaping the eruption.<\/p>\n Pressure bends the jets<\/p>\n Around the galaxy, hot gas pressed so hard that the revived jets bent instead of traveling in straight lines.<\/p>\n That pressure squeezed the northern lobe and forced plasma, gas whose particles carry electric charge, to curl sideways toward the source.<\/p>\n A report showed the team tying that distortion to the surrounding cluster and a restarting active galactic nucleus (AGN<\/a>), the bright, energetic region around a supermassive black hole that forms when it actively pulls in matter.<\/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 said Dr. Sabyasachi Pal of Midnapore City College.<\/p>\n Old eruptions linger<\/p>\n The clearest sign of a restart came from the age gap between the newer inner lobes and the older northern one.<\/p>\n Using radiative age, an estimate of how long emitting particles have been cooling, the team dated the inner lobes to 140 million years.<\/p>\n Older still, the outer north lobe reached roughly 240 million years, preserving a record of an earlier eruption that outlasted the shutdown.<\/p>\n That pattern marks a black hole feeding cycle that keeps an AGN turning bright, then quiet, over immense spans of time.<\/p>\n A long broken tail<\/p>\n Southwest of the core, a faint tail stretches away, then breaks before continuing as thinner emission.<\/p>\n Just before that bend, the radio<\/a> glow looks crushed, while farther out the signal becomes unexpectedly flatter and brighter.<\/p>\n That contrast hints at re-acceleration, when worn-out particles gain energy again instead of simply fading with age.<\/p>\n Rather than tracing one clean plume, the tail suggests the cluster may redirect and partly revive debris from older blasts.<\/p>\n Why the clocks disagree<\/p>\n One result stood out because the long tail looked younger on paper than the newer inner structure.<\/p>\n Its estimated age was about 100 million years, even though the tail appears far more weathered and displaced.<\/p>\n Cluster turbulence or weak shocks could boost old electrons, making the radio signal look younger than the particles truly are.<\/p>\n Because the team had only two radio frequencies, that age puzzle remains provisional even as it sharpens the mystery.<\/p>\n A hidden fuel source<\/p>\n Far from inert, the host galaxy<\/a> appears old, dusty, and still capable of feeding stars and its core.<\/p>\n Infrared modeling pointed to about 106 solar masses of new stars each year, far above the optical estimate.<\/p>\n That mismatch implies thick dust hiding fresh gas, the kind of material that can also feed a black hole.<\/p>\n Instead of a fully spent galaxy, J1007+3540 seems to hold the ingredients for another restart in the future.<\/p>\n Radio waves reveal history<\/p>\n Low-frequency radio light was crucial because ancient jet debris keeps glowing there long after sharper, higher-frequency views fade.<\/p>\n LOFAR<\/a> and India\u2019s upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope compared younger inner features with dim outer material from earlier activity.<\/p>\n Those measurements exposed structures that older, coarser surveys largely missed, especially the faint tail and compressed northern region.<\/p>\n The case shows why sensitive radio maps can preserve parts of a galaxy\u2019s history that ordinary images miss.<\/p>\n More than a spectacle<\/p>\n Kumari described the revived system plainly after publication, using language that ordinary readers could grasp.<\/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 said Kumari.<\/p>\n The phrase works because the inner jet<\/a> sits inside older wreckage, placing different ages in one frame.<\/p>\n Few systems seem to combine a restarted AGN, a broken tail, and such forceful environmental distortion in one place.<\/p>\n Sharper tests ahead<\/p>\n Higher-resolution radio observations should track the core more closely and show how the newest jet pushes through crowded surroundings.<\/p>\n Deeper X-ray imaging could map the hot gas directly and test whether shocks or cavities are helping bend the flow.<\/p>\n Broader radio coverage would also pin down particle ages better, because two frequencies leave too much room for interpretation.<\/p>\n Those added views should reveal whether the southern tail is a revived relic, a redirected jet, or both.<\/p>\n Why this finding matters<\/p>\n J1007+3540 shows that black hole activity can pause for eons, restart, and then be rewritten by the space around it.<\/p>\n Better maps of similar galaxies should reveal how often repeated eruptions, hidden fuel, and cluster pressure remake the same system.<\/p>\n The study is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read?\u00a0Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a>\u00a0for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on\u00a0EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by\u00a0Eric Ralls<\/a>\u00a0and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have found that a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy called J1007+3540 has restarted powerful jets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-408924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}