See how the black hole lost its crown and "restarted"

In just a year, a period of time that is incredibly short on a cosmic scale, the corona

supermassive black hole has shrunk by a factor of 10,000. Then, a few months later, the black hole formed a new corona almost as bright as the original.

Usually such large changes in brightness shouldtake place on timescales ranging from many thousands to millions of years, MIT scientists emphasize. But in this object, the researchers observed how it changed with incredible speed.

The reason for this unusual transformation remains unclear. However, scientists believe that the source of the disaster could have been a star caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole.

Credit: MIT

Like a pebble thrown into a gearboxThe star may have ricocheted through the black hole's disk of vortex material, causing everything (including corona particles) to suddenly fall into the black hole.

As a result, as astronomers noticed, there was a sharp and unexpected drop in the brightness of the black hole by 10,000 times in just one year.

After the disappearance of the crown, astronomers continuedwatch the black hole gradually begin to collect material from its outer edges to reshape its swirling accretion disk. It began spinning high-energy X-rays near the black hole's event horizon. In just a couple of months, the black hole created a corona again, practically returning to its unique glow.

Physicists are not exactly sure what exactly leads to the formation of the corona, but they believe that it has something to do with the configuration of the magnetic field lines passing through the black hole's accretion disk.

Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technologyinstitutes said they would continue to monitor the processes of the black hole and its corona. The object is still in an unusual high flow state and it is possible that it will do something "crazy" again, so the researchers "do not want to miss it."