Black holes — the supermassive gravitation forces at the center of most galaxies — actually spend much of their time dormant, or essentially asleep. Astronomers have now spotted one not only waking up but appearing to hit the celestial equivalent of a snooze button every few days.
The black hole at the center of a galaxy named SDSS1335+0728, about 300 million light-years away, first showed signs of stirring when, in 2019, the galaxy started shining brightly. But since 2024, that black hole the astronomers nicknamed “Ansky” started producing X-ray bursts at regular intervals — almost as if Ansky was stretching, then going back to sleep for a bit, according to a paper in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Observing a black hole rising into action is relatively rare. Capturing the regular bursts of energy called quasiperiodic eruptions (QPEs) is rarer still.
“And this is the first time we have observed such ...
