Astronomers rarely see something that is both spectacular and awe-inspiring, but now they have captured a true cosmic rebirth. A supermassive black hole has reactivated itself after 100 million years of silence – and erupted like a giant space volcano.
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The black hole exploded like a volcano
The researchers observed in radio recordings how the black hole J1007+3540 shoots out super-hot plasma beams with amazing energy. These so-called cosmic “lava flows” are nearly a million light-years long and almost ten times wider than the Milky Way. The phenomenon is so powerful that it can transform the entire host galaxy.
Leading the discovery Dr. Shobha Kumari according to him, it is as if a volcano had erupted again after an extremely long period of rest. A black hole it is at the center of a huge galaxy cluster filled with extremely hot gas. Here, there is a constant struggle between the explosive energy of the black hole and the pressure of the surrounding matter.
Although there are supermassive black holes at the center of most galaxies, most of them are in a “dormant” state. However, when a black hole begins to ingest material from its surroundings, it becomes active. As the material spirals towards the event horizon, it accelerates to extreme speeds, heats up, and then escapes into space as plasma beams in the form of huge bursts of energy.
The special feature of the current observations is that not only the recent eruption was identified, but also the remains of previous explosions. The researchers found a faint, distorted envelope of plasma around the current outburst, suggesting that this black hole has undergone similar cycles of destructive activity several times before.
According to experts, such periodic outbursts play a key role in the development of galaxies. Astronomers reassure you: Sagittarius A*, located in the center of the Milky Way, is currently calm. Although a similar eruption could theoretically destroy life on Earth, according to scientists, this could happen in a galaxy collision at the earliest, according to the Daily Mail article.
