An unusual discovery in space. A team of astronomers has discovered a disproportionately large black hole at the center of a distant galaxy that is sucking it into darkness, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reported today.
These galaxies are composed of a bright core fueled by a megamassive black hole that generate “active galaxies,” which release vast amounts of energy and matter into space.
The unprecedented phenomenon was observed through the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Long-Range Telescope (VLT) and Chandra X-ray Observatory where the amazing transformation in light emission from the active galaxy named Markarian 1018 was revealed.
Some galaxies change dramatically over the course of 10 years, yet Markarian 1018 dazzled by having mutated a second time, returning to its initial classification within the last five years.
“We were surprised to see such a drastic and unusual change in Markarian 1018,” Rebecca McElroy, lead author of the paper making the discovery, said in the statement.
According to astrophysicists, the cause of this galaxy changing its brightness in a strong and abrupt way is because the black hole was slowly fading because it was “being deprived of material for its accretion”, that is, it could not grow by adding combustible matter. .