galaxy SDSS1335+0728 tagged posts

A massive black hole at the heart of a galaxy in the Virgo constellation is waking up, shooting out intense Xray flares at regular intervals that have puzzled scientists, a study said Friday.

Astronomers previously had little reason to pay any attention to galaxy SDSS1335+0728, which is 300 million light years from Earth.

But in 2019, the galaxy suddenly started shining with a brightness that turned some telescopes its way.

Then in February last year, Chilean astronomers started noticing regular bursts of X-rays coming from the galaxy.

This was a sign that the galaxy’s sleeping black hole was waking from its slumber, ...

In late 2019 the previously unremarkable galaxy SDSS1335+0728 suddenly started shining brighter than ever before. To understand why, astronomers have used data from several space and ground-based observatories, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), to track how the galaxy’s @brightness has varied. In a study out today, they conclude that they are witnessing changes never seen before in a galaxy – likely the result of the sudden awakening of the massive black hole at its core.

“Imagine you’ve been observing a distant galaxy for years, and it always seemed calm and inactive,” says Paula Sánchez Sáez, an astronomer at ESO in Germany and lead author of the study accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics...