Dormant supermassive black hole reawakens, unleashing a fresh jet across a million light-years

Astronomers observed galaxy J1007+3540 in the WHL 100706.4+354041 cluster, where a supermassive black hole that had been dormant for about 100 million years has restarted activity, producing a new, bright jet alongside older, faded radio lobes from a prior active phase. Using LOFAR and the upgraded GMRT, the team found the outer, low-frequency lobes are ~240 million years old while a younger inner jet is ~140 million years old, indicating episodic AGN activity. The jets are being distorted by the hot intracluster medium, illustrating how environment shapes jet evolution and confirming that some supermassive black holes cycle between active and dormant states on hundreds of millions of years timescales.