Artist’s impression: the galaxy SDSS1335+0728.
Scientists have watched in awe the awakening of a massive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy for the first time ever.
A five-year study of a galaxy that mysteriously brightened in 2019 has observed changes never seen before in a galaxy. The change is thought to be the result of the massive black hole at its core devouring gas in its surroundings, making the galaxy light up.
Getting Brighter
Massive black holes exist at the center of most galaxies, including the Milky Way, but are typically “sleeping” and not directly visible. The galaxy, called SDSS1335+0728, is now classified as having an active galactic nucleus—a bright, compact region powered by a massive black hole. Other causes of galaxies suddenly lighting up—such as a supernova (exploding star) or a star getting ripped apart by a black hole—were ruled out because the galaxy remained bright for too long. Almost five years after it lit up in December 2019, as seen by the Zwicky Transient Facility telescope in California, it’s still getting brighter.
Real-Time
The chance to watch in real-time the sudden turning-on of an active galactic nucleus is a first for astronomers. “Imagine you’ve been observing a distant galaxy for years, and it always seemed calm and inactive,” said Paula Sánchez Sáez, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory in Germany and lead author of the study to be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. “Suddenly, its [core]
starts showing dramatic changes in brightness, unlike any typical events we’ve seen before.”This artist’s impression shows two stages in the formation of a disc of gas and dust around the ... [+]
Unique Event
As well as getting brighter in optical wavelengths of light, the galaxy is now radiating much more light at ultraviolet, optical and infrared wavelengths, say the researchers. In February, it also began emitting X-rays. Astronomers have never seen anything like it. “The most tangible option to explain this phenomenon is that we are seeing how the [core] of the galaxy is beginning to show (...) activity,” said co-author Lorena Hernández García from the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics and the University of Valparaíso in Chile. “If so, this would be the first time that we see the activation of a massive black hole in real-time.”
Milky Way
What’s happening to SDSS1335+0728 suggests that the same is possible in the Milky Way, where its massive black hole, Sgr A*, could awake.
The galaxy, which is 300 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, has since 2019 been studied using ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and two of NASA’s space telescopes, Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and Chandra X-ray Observatory.
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