A supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy cluster has erupted after approximately 100 million years of complete silence, unleashing a jet of magnetised plasma across nearly a million light-years of space in what the astronomers who observed it have described as a cosmic volcano coming back to life after ages of calm

Every large galaxy in the observable universe is thought to host a supermassive black hole at its centre. Most of the time, on the available observational evidence, these black holes are dormant. They accrete only tiny amounts of matter from their immediate surroundings, emit only faint radiation, and produce no visible jets. From cosmic distances, [...] The post A supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy cluster has erupted after approximately 100 million years of complete silence, unleashin