Astronomers Discover Black Hole 'Waking Up'

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Facts

• Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) say they've observed the gradual illumination of a black hole that's 1M times larger than the sun and is located 300M lightyears away.¹
• It was first discovered by an observatory in California, called the Zwicky Transient Facility, in 2019. It's located within the Virgo constellation and is in a distant galaxy that was previously ignored for decades.²
• The ESO researchers say the galaxy has an active galactic nucleus powered by the black hole. While phenomena such as supernovas and incoming stars can brighten a galaxy for dozens or hundreds of days, the black hole has continuously powered this illumination for over four years.³
• Using tools, including the X-shooter on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), the scientists noticed the galaxy was emitting more light at ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths — they also observed X-ray emissions last February.⁴
• They found that brightness had recently doubled in mid-infrared wavelengths, quadrupled in ultraviolet brightness, and increased by 10 times in the X-ray range.²
• According to Chilean astronomer and study co-author Lorena Hernández García, this was the first-ever direct observation of a black hole awakening. Supermassive black holes, which are at least 100K times the mass of the sun, are found in most galaxies.³

Sources: ¹BBC News, ²Guardian, ³CNN and ⁴Phys.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Esahubble. Thanks to high-tech telescopes, scientists have been able to discover black holes, monitor their jets of electrons, and now observe their illumination of galaxies. As black holes have now been discovered in almost every galaxy, scientists will next be able to connect these mysterious phenomena to the creation of galaxies themselves. Not even light can escape these iconic cosmic enigmas.
• Narrative B, as provided by Mashable. When black hole discoveries are made, there are fears that one day, this cosmic phenomenon could cause the demise of planet Earth itself. There has indeed been a recent increase in observations of black holes 'spotlighting' galaxies through their emission of radiation. However, scientific evidence suggests that black holes are not the outer space vacuum cleaners some claim they are — indeed, light may not be able to escape, but Earth is 'unbelievably' safe.

Predictions