‘Dramatic Changes’: Astronomers Witness the ‘Awakening’ of a Supermassive Black Hole 300 Million Light Years Away

A little-known distant galaxy 300 million light years away has astronomers believing it is the start of the new supermassive black hole.

Knewz.com has learned that astronomers reached this conclusion after comparing previous images of the celestial entity to more recent ones, during which they observed a profound transformation.

Dr. Paula Sánchez Sáez, who serves the European Organisation for Astronomical Research (ESO) and the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, tried to explain the phenomenon by saying:

“Imagine you’ve been observing a distant galaxy for years, and it always seemed calm and inactive.”

“Suddenly, its core starts showing dramatic changes in brightness, unlike any typical events we’ve seen before.”

Apparently, this is what happened to the so-called SDSS 1335+0728 galaxy when it lit up in December 2019.

According to the report published by the weekly magazine, Sci News , these sudden illuminations also transpire as a result of supernova explosions (when a star reaches the end of its life, per ScienceDirect ), or tidal disruption events (when stars pass close enough to a black hole and they are pulled apart, per NASA ) occur.

Scientists are certain that the SDSS 1335+0728 is neither the latter nor the former due to the fact that supernovas and tidal events last a maximum of 100 days.

It has been five years since the black hole phenomenon was first observed and it brightens continuously.

Dr. Claudio Ricci, an astronomer with Chile’s Diego Portales University commented on the anomaly, noting that “supermassive black holes usually are sleeping and not directly visible.”

“In the case of SDSS 1335+0728, we were able to observe the awakening of the massive black hole, which suddenly started to feast on gas available in its surroundings, becoming very bright.”

In addition to its longevity, scientists have noted other qualities like increased amounts of ultraviolet, optical, and infrared light and in February 2024, the galaxy started emanating X-rays.

“This behavior is unprecedented,” said Sáez.

Dr. Lorena Hernández García, who is an astronomer at the University of Valparaíso in Chile observed:

“The most tangible option to explain this phenomenon is that we are seeing how the core of the galaxy is beginning to show activity.”

“If so, this would be the first time that we see the activation of a massive black hole in real time,” García said, mirroring Sáez’s sentiments.

“Previous studies reported inactive galaxies becoming active after several years, but this is the first time the process itself — the awakening of the black hole — has been observed in real-time.”

She noted that the center of the Earth ’s galaxy could experience the same.

“This is something that could happen also to our own Sagittarius A, a supermassive black hole located at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, but it is unclear how likely this is to happen.”