Decades of observations found nothing remarkable about the distant galaxy in the constellation of Virgo, but that changed at the end of 2019 when astronomers noticed a dramatic surge in its luminosity that persists to this day.
Researchers now believe they are witnessing changes that have never been seen before, with the black hole at the galaxy’s core putting on an extreme cosmic light show as vast amounts of material fall into it.
“We discovered this source at the moment it started to show these variations in luminosity,” said Dr Paula Sánchez-Sáez, a staff astronomer at the European Southern Observatory headquarters in Garching, Germany.
The galaxy, which goes by the snappy codename SDSS1335+0728 and lies 300m light years away, was flagged to astronomers in December 2019 when an observatory in California called the Zwicky Transient Facility recorded a sudden rise in its brightness.
Active galactic nuclei emit a broad spectrum of light as gas around the black hole heats up and glows, and surrounding dust particles absorb some wavelengths and re-radiate others.
The team has not ruled out an exotic form of “tidal disruption event”, a highly restrained phrase to describe a star that is ripped apart after straying too close to a black hole.
The original article contains 417 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 51%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Decades of observations found nothing remarkable about the distant galaxy in the constellation of Virgo, but that changed at the end of 2019 when astronomers noticed a dramatic surge in its luminosity that persists to this day.
Researchers now believe they are witnessing changes that have never been seen before, with the black hole at the galaxy’s core putting on an extreme cosmic light show as vast amounts of material fall into it.
“We discovered this source at the moment it started to show these variations in luminosity,” said Dr Paula Sánchez-Sáez, a staff astronomer at the European Southern Observatory headquarters in Garching, Germany.
The galaxy, which goes by the snappy codename SDSS1335+0728 and lies 300m light years away, was flagged to astronomers in December 2019 when an observatory in California called the Zwicky Transient Facility recorded a sudden rise in its brightness.
Active galactic nuclei emit a broad spectrum of light as gas around the black hole heats up and glows, and surrounding dust particles absorb some wavelengths and re-radiate others.
The team has not ruled out an exotic form of “tidal disruption event”, a highly restrained phrase to describe a star that is ripped apart after straying too close to a black hole.
The original article contains 417 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 51%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!