Astronomers Discover a Black Hole 'Waking Up'
Astronomers Discover a Black Hole 'Waking Up'
The Facts
Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) say they've observed the gradual illumination of a black hole 1M times larger than the sun located 300M lightyears away.
The black hole was first discovered by the an observatory in California, called the Zwicky Transient Facility, in 2019. It's located within the Virgo constellation of a distant galaxy, which was previously ignored for decades.
The Spin
Thanks to high-tech telescopes, scientists have been able to discover black holes, monitor their jets of electrons, and now observe their illumination of galaxies. As black holes have now been discovered in almost every galaxy, scientists will next be able to connect these mysterious phenomena to the creation of galaxies themselves.
Despite the recent increase in observations of black holes spotlighting galaxies through their emission of radiation, fears that their growth could one day engulf the Earth are overblown. These celestial phenomena are amazing to observe and read about, but they're certainly not the outer space vacuum cleaners some claim they are.
