Artist’s impression of a gas-consuming black hole
John A. Pack
In the distant universe, a supermassive black hole seems to be engulfing a giant gas cloud and causing an extraordinary explosion never seen before. So far, it has emitted about 100 times the total energy the Sun emits in its lifetime, and it’s not done yet.
Dubbed AT20211wx, this giant hell was first discovered in 2020 by the Twicky Temporary Facility in California. Philip Wiseman of the University of Southampton, UK, and his colleagues have made a series of follow-up observations at other observatories in the years since. “We see all sorts of massive explosions and flashes in space, but nothing comes close to what we see here,” says Weisman.
The only cosmic objects brighter than AT20211wx are quasars. A quasar is caused by the continuous flow of gas into a supermassive black hole. The explosion brightened more than 15 times over the course of about four months, then began to fade gradually and continues to this day. The observations seem to point to a supermassive black hole engulfing a giant gas cloud, perhaps 100 times the size of our solar system, or more.
These observations may help explain why some smaller galaxies have oversized black holes. “We thought we knew the main way black holes grow, but they actually grow in different ways than we thought, including violent and explosive growth episodes. It looks like it might,” says Weisman.
Further analysis of this object could help us figure out exactly how it works, and how black holes behave more generally. “It’s so big, bright, and long-lasting that it gives us a closer look at the inner workings of what happens when matter falls into a black hole,” Weisman says.
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