Astronomers witness supermassive black hole gorge on a cosmic meal before ‘burping’ radio jets 300 days later
AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication
Astronomers using NASA’s Swift X‑ray telescope and radio observations have tracked a supermassive black hole at the core of galaxy NGC 1275 in the Perseus Cluster as it “burped” twin radio jets 300 days after a massive accretion episode. The black hole’s X‑ray flare in February 2023 doubled its brightness for less than two months, indicating a sudden spike in the inflow of matter rather than a tidal‑disruption event. By modeling Swift’s archival data and removing cluster background, researchers estimated the black hole’s mass between 100 million and 1 billion solar masses. The subsequent radio jet flare provides a rare, long‑term view of disk‑jet coupling, linking changes in the accretion disk to jet ejection on large scales.
💡 Why It Matters
- · It offers the clearest single‑system evidence yet of how rapid accretion variations directly trigger powerful jets, a key mechanism that regulates star formation and galaxy growth.
