Mystery Solved: Astronomers Decode the Enigmatic Flashes from a Black Hole

• The black hole, officially designated 1ES 1927+654, resides in the far constellation Draco.
• Astronomers have been tracking this black hole for several years, especially since 2018 when a significant X-ray outburst indicated a change in its characteristics.
• From 2022 to 2024, astronomers recorded rapid X-ray flashes emanating from the black hole, with its brightness fluctuating every few minutes.
• Researchers hypothesize that a low-mass white dwarf, which is the dense core of a deceased star roughly the size of Earth, may be responsible.

A cosmic enigma involving a black hole approximately 270 million light-years from the Milky Way is becoming more intricate.

For years, astronomers have been confounded by this particular supermassive black hole, a giant equivalent to a million suns in a remote galaxy. In 2018, astronomers noted that the black hole’s corona – a swirling cloud of intensely heated plasma – abruptly vanished before reforming months later.

Currently, the black hole has again exhibited peculiar characteristics that worldwide teams of astronomers claim to have never witnessed before: Plasma jets moving at nearly one-third the speed of light, and swift X-ray flashes from the core of the black hole progressively increasing in frequency.

Researchers are postulating that they have pinpointed a likely reason for the odd behavior.

It is believed that a stellar remnant, or white dwarf, may be precariously rotating on the edge of the black hole, leading to the eruptions of high-energy radiation.

“This would be the closest known phenomenon around any black hole,” said Megan Masterson, a graduate physics student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was part of the team that made the discovery, in a statement. “This indicates that objects such as white dwarfs may be able to exist in close proximity to an event horizon for a relatively long duration.”

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Black hole first observed acting unusually in 2018

The black hole, having a rather lengthy official name (1ES 1927+654), is situated in the remote constellation Draco.

Astronomers have been observing the black hole for several years, primarily since 2018 when the mass was noted altering its attributes with a significant X-ray outburst, as stated by Eileen Meyer, an associate professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County in a NASA news release. Following the outburst, the black hole seemed to revert to a subdued state, with a period of inactivity lasting nearly a year.

Research teams at Meyer’s university and various other institutions have been observing the black hole closely since then.

This vigilance proved fruitful when, in April 2023, a team at the university and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, observed a consistent, months-long rise in low-energy X-rays. The researchers conducted new radio observations, uncovering thata powerful and atypical radio burst was in progress, as reported by NASA.

Researchers from MIT also noted this activity in 2018 when the corona of the black hole turned dark, subsequently rebuilding slowly over time. For a period, the rejuvenated corona became the most luminous X-ray-emitting entity in the sky, according to an announcement from MIT.

In 2022, the MIT team meticulously examined observations of the black hole recorded by the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton, a space-based observatory designed to detect and assess X-ray emissions from black holes and other astronomical sources. They also observed that the X-rays from the black hole seemed to pulse with an increasing frequency.

Astronomers identify swift X-ray bursts around black hole

From 2022 to 2024, astronomers at MIT, under Masterson’s guidance, identified rapid X-ray bursts originating from the black hole, where brightness fluctuated repeatedly by 10% every few minutes.

During this two-year span, the fluctuation cycle accelerated from every 18 minutes to merely seven minutes – marking the first such measurement around a supermassive black hole.

If this indicated an orbiting entity, astronomers concluded that the object was traveling at half the speed of light. Then an unexpected development occurred: the fluctuation cycle stabilized.

Further perplexing researchers, radio data from February, April, and May 2024 indicates what appear to be jets of ionized gas, or plasma, extending from both sides of the black hole – a rare occurrence for such a colossal black hole, according to astronomers.

Is the flashing from a white dwarf?

Astronomers suspect that the cause of the flashing is located very near the black hole, possibly within a few million miles of the event horizon – a theoretical boundary known as the “point of no return,” where light and other radiation can no longer escape.

A small black hole would plunge directly into the event horizon, whilst a normal star would be rapidly torn apart by tidal forces. However, astronomers theorize that a low-mass white dwarf, a dense core of a deceased star roughly the size of Earth, could remain intact, even while losing some of its material as it approaches the event horizon.

As any object approaches a supermassive black hole, they are typically ensnared in a potent gravitational field and unable to escape. If the object in orbit is indeed a white dwarf, it would be undertaking a precarious balancing act, teetering on the brink of the black hole without being pulled in.

To induce the fluctuations noted by astronomers, the orbiting mass is expected to produce ripples in spacetime, known as gravitational waves, as it nears the event horizon.

For this reason, astronomers anticipate that the gravitational waves may be detectable during an upcoming mission aimed at studying the phenomenon. The LISA mission, led by the European Space Agency, plans to dispatch a fleet of three space probes within the next decade to study gravitational waves, or distortions in spacetime generated by violent events such as black hole mergers.

The findings were presented on Monday at the 245th gathering of the American Astronomical Society in National Harbor, Maryland.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com