A supermassive black hole named 'Ansky,' located 300 million light-years away, has suddenly awakened after decades of dormancy. The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton spacecraft captured the 'turn on event,' revealing outbursts in both optical and X-ray light.
Astronomers observed quasiperiodic eruptions (QPEs), short-lived flaring events, marking the first time such activity has been seen in a black hole awakening. This event provides a unique opportunity to study black hole behavior in real-time using X-ray space telescopes.
The cause of Ansky's QPEs is still under investigation. Unlike typical tidal disruption events (TDEs), there's no evidence of a star being destroyed. Researchers suggest the accretion disk might be experiencing energetic shocks from an object passing through it, creating X-ray flares.
Ansky's X-ray bursts are ten times longer and more luminous than typical QPEs, releasing a hundred times more energy. These eruptions occur approximately every 4.5 days, challenging existing models of X-ray flash generation.
The team suggests continued monitoring of Ansky and similar events to understand the recurring X-ray flares, which occur about every 25 days. These flares might be caused by an eccentric inner section of the accretion disk precessing, with an intruding object passing through different surfaces.
Ansky serves as a 'real-time' test subject for QPE models, aiding in the creation of better models for these events. The repetitive bursts are also likely associated with gravitational waves that ESA's future LISA mission might detect.
These X-ray observations will complement gravitational wave data, helping to solve the puzzling behavior of massive black holes. ESA's LISA space-based interferometer array will be the first space-based laboratory to detect gravitational waves, particularly from AGNs such as Ansky.