2023-07-07 13:52:22
A massive black hole suddenly “came to life” and became one of the brightest celestial bodies astronomers have ever seen, Live Science reports. J221951, a supermassive black hole located roughly 10 billion light-years from Earth, suddenly began to glow so brightly that experts first thought it was an explosion 1 billion light-years away.
Astronomers first suspected that they were observing a phenomenon called a kilonova, which occurs when two neutron stars collide and explode. However, these explosions only cause visible blue light for a few days, but the strong blue light observed by the researchers did not disappear even after months, which is how they knew that it was not a kilonova.
Finally, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope also examined the mysterious object and found it to be at the center of a distant galaxy, which is believed to be a supermassive black hole.
The celestial body grew brighter and brighter for 10 months, and then began to fade.
The experts believe that there are two possible explanations for the strange phenomenon: according to one possibility, the bright light was caused by the celestial body engulfing a star, but it is also possible that the black hole had been dormant until now, but now suddenly “awakened” and ” “he began to feast.”
In order for astronomers to be able to determine what exactly “turned on” the object, further investigations will be necessary.
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