A visualization of the blazar being observed while emitting gamma rays. (Credit: Stefano Ciprini)
After 10 years of observations, scientists have confirmed a two-year cycle in the gamma-ray brightness of a blazar, or a galaxy with supermassive black holes that consume mass and produce high-energy jets as a result. Blazars are the most energetic and luminous objects that we have identified so far in the known universe. “This is the first time that a gamma-ray period has been confirmed in an active galaxy,” Stefano Ciprini, a researcher at the INFN Tor Vergata division of the Italian Space Agency’s Space Science Data Center in Rome, said in a press statement. Gamma rays are some of the most energetic electromagnetic emissions, and powerful objects like blazars produce them in large quantities. Finding that the emissions increase and decrease in a predictable cycle, though, hints to researchers that there might be more than ...
