It’s unclear whether it was a stellar meal or simply gas that woke the sleeping giant.
But astronomers say the ongoing outburst recorded by a spacecraft since March 28 is the first time scientists have witnessed the sudden activation of a dormant supermassive black hole.
David Burrows of Penn State University in University Park and his colleagues report their findings on the burst, which has continued for more than 30 days, in an article posted at arXiv.org
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