Look out, world, a huge black hole is awake
After 26 years of what appeared to be inactivity, the huge black hole in the system of V404 Cygni, 8,000 light years away from Earth, ‘woke up’ recently to show spikes in high-energy light. The new spike in activity was detected by the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL after observing it for around a week when the huge black hole was eating an astral neighbor.
The light from this huge black hole made for an interesting show
With the new activity, the spike in high-energy light caused a fascinating phenomenon that looked very different to our eyes in the night sky. The spectacle would cause the light that reaches our eyes to flicker and vary in brightness and become visible after its ‘inactivity’.
The system featuring the black hole is only across the way
Though the system is located 8,000 light years away, it still is located in the Milky Way in the Swan constellation, or Cygnus. There, it consumes material from a star that the black hole orbits. The consumption has caused several peaks in activity throughout the years, the last spike in 1989.
On June 15, 2015 the change in activity was detected
Flares of gamma rays were detected by the Burst Alert Telescope on NASA’s Swift satellite and MAXI on the International Space Station. Many agree that this behavior from the huge black hole is unique right now in the bursts of light, some brighter than other objects in the night sky. The system that huge black hole resides in has not been as luminous since the last spike in 1989.
Finding from previous years and now show that the spouts of inactivity are due to the material of consumption slowly piling up around the disc of the black hole until the feeding is temporarily interrupted for a short period of time. Scientists are eager to see what this new bout of activity will bring once the spike beings to settle down. Last time, data showed that the neighboring star was significantly smaller than the black hole that orbited it, the hole being more massive than the Sun.
Only time will tell what this huge black hole will bring after its 26 year nap and feeding time.
