After nearly 100 million years of silence, a supermassive black hole at the heart of galaxy J1007+3540 has violently erupted —like a "cosmic volcano" awakening. Astronomers, using the Low Frequency Array in the Netherlands and India's Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, captured jets of magnetized plasma blasting nearly a million light-years into space.
Led by Shobha Kumari of Midnapore City College, the team revealed this black hole as a rare episodic Active Galactic Nucleus, flickering on and off across eons. Fresh jets, as depicted in the above image, now blaze over ancient, ghostly plasma, creating a cosmic lava flow frozen in time.
Surrounded by a scorching galaxy cluster, the jets battle immense gas pressure, twisting and compressing their shapes —one lobe notably bent like a cosmic sculpture. Co-author Surajit Paul calls J1007+3540 a textbook case of jet-cluster interaction. Published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, this discovery opens a new window into black hole behavior. Future high-resolution observations aim to decode the frequency and fury of these colossal eruptions.