Giant black hole awakens with recurring X-ray bursts

This artist’s impression illustrates the mechanism that could be at the origin of the powerful bursts of X-ray light seen from a newly awakened black hole named Ansky.

The European Space Agency's X-ray telescope, XMM-Newton, is playing a crucial role in investigating the recurring X-ray flares coming from this supermassive black hole, lurking at the centre of SDSS1335+0728, a distant galaxy 300 million light-years away.

The extraordinary characteristics of Ansky’s bursts prompted the research team to speculate that the X-ray flares could be coming from highly energetic shocks in the disc, provoked by a small celestial object repeatedly travelling through and disrupting the orbiting material.

[Image Description: A bright disc of purplish, white and gold lines surrounds a black ellipse-shaped area, that looks like a hole in space. A ball of shining material pierces through the disc; an eruption of bright white-to-gold rays encircles the small hole in the disc provoked by the passage of the shining ball.]