They are, at the same time, One of the greatest mysteries in the universe and the most powerful objects of the cosmos. Black holes are crucial for their role in the formation of galaxies, their influence on the evolution of stars and their ability to provide information about physics. They turn out to be a kind of gravitational anchors for everything close to them and scientists use them as laboratories to prove theories about the severity and fundamental laws of the universe.
Although we know that Supermasive black holes (with millions of times the mass of our sun) They hide in the center of most galaxies, their own nature makes detection and study difficult. Unlike the popular idea that black holes constantly devour matter, these gravitational monsters can pass long periods in a latent and inactive phase.
This is precisely what happened with the black hole in the heart of SDSS1335+0728, a distant galaxy and unwrapping 300 million light years away. After decades of inactivity, It suddenly illuminated and recently began to produce unprecedented X -ray flashes.
The first signs of activity appeared at the end of 2019, when the galaxy began to shine unexpectedly, attracting the attention of astronomers. After studying it for several years, they concluded that The unusual observed changes were probably due to the black hole had suddenly activated. The central, brilliant and compact region of the galaxy, is now classified as an active galactic nucleus, nicknamed «Ansky».
“When we first saw Ansky’s lighting in optical images – Explains Paula Sánchez Sáez, of the Southern European Observatory and team leader who first explored the activation of the black hole, in A statement -, we start monitoring observations with the NASA SWIFT X -ray Telescope and review archived data of the Erosite X -ray telescope, but at that time we do not observe any evidence of X -ray emissions ”.
In February 2024, a team led by Lorena Hernández-García, from the University of Valparaíso (Chile), began observing X-ray bursts from Ansky at almost regular intervals. This unusual event gives astronomers the opportunity to observe the behavior of a black hole in real time, using XMM-Newton and Nicer, Chandra and Swift space telescopes of NASA. This phenomenon is known as quasiperiódica or ECP eruption. ECP are short -term rashes. And this es The first time an event of this type is observed in a black hole that seems to be waking.
The first episode of ECP was discovered in 2019, and since then we have only detected a few more. We still do not understand what causes them. Study Ansky will help Understand black holes, their evolution and calculate how much energy releases when it is illuminated.
The severity of a black hole captures the matter that is too close and can tear it. The subject of a captured star, for example, would disperse into a hot, bright and rapid rotation disc called accretion disc. At the moment, It is believed that explosions are caused by an object (which could be a star or a small black hole) that interacts with this accretion album and have been related to the destruction of a star. However, there is no evidence that Ansky has destroyed a star.
This led experts to consider other possibilities. The accretion album could be formed by gas captured by the black hole of its neighborhood, and not by a star. In this scenario, X -ray eruptions would come from highly energy shocks on the disc, caused by a small celestial object that goes through and repeatedly disturbs the material in orbit.
“Ansky’s X -ray explosions are ten times longer and ten times luminous than those we observed in an event like this -Añade Joheen Chakraborty, of the Massachusetts Technological Institute (MIT) -. Each of these eruptions releases a hundred times more energy than that observed in other places. Ansky’s rashes also show the longest cadence ever observed, of approximately 4.5 days. This tests our models and challenges our existing ideas about how these X -ray flashes are generated. ”
The results have been Posted in Nature.