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Reborn Supermassive Black Hole Fires Up Jets After 100 Million-Year Lull

Low-frequency images from LOFAR and uGMRT confirm a fresh inner jet inside ancient radio lobes shaped by dense cluster gas.

Overview

  • Peer-reviewed analysis in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society identifies J1007+3540 as an episodic active galactic nucleus that has reactivated after roughly 100 million years.
  • Radio maps show a compact, bright core jet nested within older, faded plasma, marking a restart of activity.
  • Interaction with the host cluster’s hot gas is compressing and bending the outflows, including a distorted northern lobe with curved backflow.
  • uGMRT spectra reveal an ultra-steep region of very old, energy-depleted particles and a long faint tail of diffuse emission stretching southwest.
  • Researchers plan deeper, higher-resolution observations to probe the nucleus and track how the revived jets propagate through the turbulent environment.