A large international team of scientists has observed a phenomenon that astronomers didn’t ever expect to see happen in real time. A new paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters led by Eileen Meyer, associate professor of physics at UMBC, describes the findings. It reports remarkable increases in radio emission in a few months and formation of plasma jets extending from a black hole over the course of a year.

A galaxy about 270 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Draco called 1ES 1927+654 is the focus of the excitement. For many years, scientists had classified 1ES 1927+654 as an “active galactic nucleus,” or AGN, meaning it has an active black hole at its center. This particular black hole was adding material at a slow rate—until it wasn’t.

Back in 2018, the black hole first made news when it suddenly increased its activity exponentially. It dramatically increased the rate at which it was consuming material and became over 100 times brighter in the visible light spectrum over the course of a few months. A shift like that was once thought to take far longer than a human lifetime, on the order of thousands to millions of years. Since then, scientists have been observing it closely for any additional interesting phenomena, and 1ES 1927+654 has delivered.

More drama

After the major increase in activity began in 2018, which included nearly a year of extremely high levels of X-ray emission, the black hole quieted down again by 2020—only to dramatically increase its output again in 2023. At that time, it began emitting radio waves at 60 times the previous intensity over just a few months, behavior which has never been monitored in real time for a supermassive black hole.

Some of the highest-resolution imaging of radio frequency emissions was collected using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). It clearly shows a pair of oppositely directed plasma jets forming near the black hole and expanding outward over the course of 2023 – 2024. Among the other unusual behavior of the black hole, this is the first-ever observation of jet formation in real time.

In recent years, scientists have discovered a handful of supermassive black holes that appear to emit far more intensely at radio frequencies compared to when they were first observed, which they call “changing-look AGN.” However, until now all of them had been observed at two timepoints years or decades apart, and the assumption was that “something happened” in between. This new paper gives the very first look at how this kind of change occurs in detail.

Turning on in real time

In some cases, black hole jets “can reach huge scales well outside the host galaxy. They can affect how many stars are forming,” Meyer says. Figuring out how the jets work “is a very important thing, in order to understand the big picture of how the universe is evolving and galaxies evolved.”

In the case described in the new paper, “We have very detailed observations of a radio jet  ‘turning on’ in real time, and even more exciting are the VLBI observations, which clearly show these plasma blobs moving out from the black hole,” Meyer says. “That shows us that this really is an outflow jet of plasma that’s causing the radio flare. It’s not some other process causing increased radio emission. This is a jet moving at likely 20 to 30 percent of the speed of light originating very near a black hole. That’s the exciting thing.”

Sibasish Laha, an associate research scientist for UMBC with the Center for Space Sciences Technology at Goddard Space Flight Center and second author on the new paper, has long studied changing-look AGN at X-ray wavelengths. On a hunch that 1ES 1927+654’s radio frequency emission might show interesting behavior as well, he reached out to Meyer to form a collaboration to study it and other similar galaxies back in 2020. He is lead author on a companion paper that is currently under review. It includes additional X-ray observations and interpretation of the jet formation event. 

“We still do not understand how black holes and their host galaxies interact with each other and co-evolve in cosmic time,” Laha says, “and this study for the first time gives us the rare opportunity to understand how a supermassive black hole ‘talks’ to the host galaxy.”

Not for the faint of heart

In this kind of work, time is of the essence. “Time-domain astronomy,” as it’s called, “is not for the faint of heart,” Meyer says. “You know, there are rapid alerts—something happens and you have to go follow up. You gotta get on it, and it doesn’t matter if it’s midnight, you have to send that email because you know every hour counts. It’s a little stressful.”

The project became an “all hands on deck” moment for the UMBC collaboration. Once Meyer and Laha saw the huge jump in radio activity in 2023, Meyer says, “We were like, ‘whoa, ok, something is happening.’ This has never been seen before. We got very excited, so this is where we went all in on basically trying to grab every radio telescope and get it to look at this source.”

Because 1ES 1927+654 was changing so rapidly before their eyes, the team was awarded new, unscheduled observations on telescopes around the world during the study period, when typically telescope time must be scheduled months or years in advance.

A postdoctoral fellow working with Meyer, Onic Shuvo, who is third author on the paper, took on the lion’s share of the late-night duties, rapidly analyzing incoming data and requesting new observations. He’s thrilled to be part of such an exciting discovery. “This remarkable finding challenges existing models of AGN activity and highlights the unique role that changing-look AGN play in unraveling the mysteries of the central engine of active galaxies in real-time,” Shuvo says.

A new jet is born

The newborn jets coming from 1ES 1927+654 are relatively small compared to the massive jet structures in some of the most powerful AGN, Meyer says. But that doesn’t make them less interesting—in fact, they are probably more common across the universe and therefore very important to understand, she says.

Some data suggested that the 2018 flare, in the visible spectrum, could be due to a “tidal disruption event,” where a large object like a star or cloud of gas gets too close to an inactive black hole and artificially brightens it for just a few years, Meyer says. But observations of tidal disruption events in already-active galaxies are rare and not well understood.  

While the largest plasma jets extend well beyond their host galaxies and last millions of years, scientists are gaining understanding of a new class of smaller, shorter-lived jets called “compact symmetric objects,” or CSOs. Meyer believes the data in this case point most strongly to the birth of a new CSO. One recent hypothesis is that jets in CSOs are qualitatively different from the very large and long-lived jets seen elsewhere, Meyer says, perhaps representing “a single ingestion of a star or a gas cloud; basically a single tidal disruption event happens and powers this short-term jet for maybe 1,000 years.”

Perhaps the tidal disruption event occurred several years ago, “and it took a few years for the accreting black hole to organize and start producing the jet,” as the team saw in 2023 – 2024, Meyer says. 

Open questions

Overall, “We still don’t really understand after all these decades of studying these sources why only a fraction of accreting black holes produce jets and then exactly how they launch them. Until recently we could not literally look into that innermost region to see what’s happening—how the accretion disk surrounding the black hole is interacting with and producing the jet. And so there are still a lot of open questions there,” Meyer says. 

Questions remain, but today there are many promising models of how black holes produce jets, Meyer says. Next steps will include working with theorists to understand how the data from this study can help test and refine those models. 

“There’s a lot of theoretical work to be done to understand what we’ve seen, but the good thing is that we have a massive amount of data,” Meyer says. “We’re going to keep following this source, and it’s going to continue to be exciting.” 

Name: Oluwasemilore Osinowo
Pronouns: She/Her
Semester of Internship: Summer 2024
Major: Biological Sciences
Current Class Level: Senior

This semester I completed a(n)...: Research experience

Internship, Co-op, or Research Site (Company/Organization Name): UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh—Circle Lab
Location of the Organization (City, State): Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Title of position: Research Assistant (Intern)

Tell us about your internship, co-op, or research opportunity, including your day-to-day responsibilities:

During my summer 2024 research internship at UPMC Children’s Hospital, I worked on a project that focused on how social media affects adolescent relationships and the role it plays in relationship violence. I helped recruit and interview teens about their experiences with social media and how it influences their relationships. We also spoke with caregivers of LGBTQ+ teens about how they talk to their children about healthy and unhealthy relationships.

A key part of the project involved the Engaging Together for Healthy Relationships (ETHR) model, which aims to prevent adolescent relationship abuse by building trust, empathy, healing, and resilience in families. The goal was to guide teens and their caregivers toward healthier relationship dynamics.

We conducted all interviews online, and we used AI to transcribe the interviews. I proofread and de-identified the transcripts to protect the participants’ privacy. I also used a software called Dedoose to code the interviews, helping us identify common themes and patterns in their responses.

In addition to working with teens and caregivers, I also interviewed doulas and community health workers (CHWs) about their experiences with clients who had faced intimate partner violence (IPV). These interviews shed light on the emotional challenges survivors face and how doulas and CHWs can better support them. We talked about ways to improve training for healthcare workers to help them provide better care for survivors, especially during pregnancy.

This experience gave me valuable skills in research and taught me more about the important role healthcare professionals play in supporting violence prevention and promoting healthy relationships.

Describe the process of obtaining your position. When did you hear of the position and submit your application?

I discovered the UPMC Children’s Hospital internship through Handshake in January 2024 and applied directly through the organization’s website. In April, I received confirmation that I had been selected for the position. A few months before my start date, I traveled to Pennsylvania to complete the necessary clearance requirements for onboarding. This process allowed me to be fully prepared for my role when the internship began.

What resources did you use to find your current experience?
Handshake

What have you enjoyed the most about your position and organization?
What I enjoyed most about my position was the opportunity to meet people from various schools like Princeton, UPenn, Howard, etc. Learning about their diverse college experiences was really interesting and gave me new perspectives. I also loved talking to teenagers during the interviews. Since I was once a teenager myself, I found many of the topics we discussed relatable, which made the conversations more engaging. Additionally, I really appreciated the chance to shadow my PI, who is a pediatrician. It gave me valuable insight into the field of pediatrics, which is my passion.

How do you believe you have made an impact through your work?

I made an impact by creating a more engaging and comfortable environment for the teens during interviews, making it easier for them to open up and express themselves. As someone young who could relate to their experiences, I helped them feel understood and safe. In the specific lab I worked at, most researchers were young adults who weren’t very active on social media, so I was able to bridge the gap and bring a fresh perspective to our discussions about adolescent relationships and social media.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

My advice for another student seeking an internship is to start early, be proactive, and make your application show how excited you are about the opportunity. After applying on the organization’s website, send a follow-up email to show your passion for the position. Use resources like Handshake to find internships, and don’t worry if you don’t meet every requirement. Focus on your strengths and what makes you a good fit. Also, talk to mentors or professors for advice and take advantage of networking to learn from others.

Most importantly, don’t give up. Keep applying, and if you face rejection, recognize what you can improve in your application. Remember, rejection is just redirection.

Please provide a short reflection or quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / working with the Career Center.

What I liked most about my position was the chance to connect with people from different schools and engage with teens in a meaningful way. I also really appreciated how the organization took great care of the interns’ well-being, making sure our meals, housing, and other needs were covered. The Career Center was instrumental in helping me find this opportunity through Handshake and guiding me through the application process.