Astrophysicists from the MSU have observed the transformation of a supermassive black hole, which resulted in its inreased brightness, and previously invisible gas clouds.
The black hole is located in the center of Galaxy NGC 2617, and is its active galactic nucleus (AGN), as it emits a huge amount of radiation. Earlier it belonged to the second type of AGN, which are covered with dust and surrounded with slowly moving gas. In ase o the first type objects it is possible to observe the matter rapidly spiraling into the black hole. Previously, scientists explained this difference by the fact that galactic nuclei are actually the same, but seen from different angles. However the transition from one type to another does not fit into this model.
"It is clear that this phenomenon is not very rare, on the contrary, we believe that this is quite typical of AGN. There are various possible explanations for these phenomena. One of them is that perhaps some star approached too close to the black hole and was torn apart with its gravity. Nevertheless, the destruction of the star by a black hole is very rare, and we do not think that such events may explain the observed frequency of the type of active galactic nuclei changing. Instead, we consider a model in which the "powering mode" of a black hole changes dramatically. As the matter spirals down towards the black hole, it emits intense radiation. We believe that this intense radiation has destroyed part of the dust surrounding the nucleus, thus making it possible or us to see the inner area in the vicinity of the black hole, "- Victor Oknyansky, one of the authors, comments on the discovery.
Observations of NGC 2617  were carried out using a global network of robotic telescopes MASTER, 2,5-meter telescope, located near Kislovodsk, a two-meter telescope observatory in Azerbaijan, the Swift X-ray satellite, as well as several other telescopes.
According to the scientists, the study of AGN transitions is necessary for understanding of what happens around the supermassive black holes that absorb the surrounding gas.