A Long March 5 rocket takes off Thursday from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on Hainan Island with the Tianwen 1 Mars mission. Credit: Xinhua

A heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket propelled Chinas first Mars landing mission toward the red planet on Thursday after launching from a seaside spaceport on Hainan Island, the second of three international Mars probes expected to depart planet Earth this month.

Kicking off a nearly seven-month journey, Chinas Tianwen 1 spacecraft lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern Chinas Hainan province at 0441 GMT (12:41 p.m. Beijing time) on top of a Long March 5 rocket, the heaviest launcher in the countrys inventory.

A live video feed streamed by amateur spectators near the launch site showed the Long March 5 rocket climbing away from the Wenchang spaceport. Ten rocket engines fueled by kerosene and liquid hydrogen powered the 57-meter tall Long March 5 into a sunny midday sky, and the rocket quickly receded from view in the unofficial online video feed.

Chinese state media did not broadcast the mission live or publicize the exact launch time in advance, but airspace and maritime notices warning pilots and sailors to steer clear of downrange drop zones suggested the Long March 5 was scheduled to lift off Thursday.

Chinese authorities lifted the news blackout on the launch once the 5-tonne Tianwen 1 spacecraft was injected onto a trajectory toward Mars by the Long March 5s second stage. The China National Space Administration confirmed the Long March 5 rocket placed Tianwen 1 on the proper course toward Mars about 36 minutes after launch.

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., the government-owned prime contractor for Chinas space programme, declared the launch a success in a statement.

Tianwen 1 is scheduled to arrive at Mars next February after a seven-month voyage. If successful, the mission will be Chinas first probe to enter orbit around another planet.

Two-to-three months later, the Tianwen 1 orbiter will release a lander to enter the Martian atmosphere and aim for a controlled touchdown in Utopia Planitia, a broad plain in Marss northern hemisphere. Once on the surface, the lander will lower a ramp and a 240-kilogramme rover will drive onto the surface.

If China pulls off those feats according to plan, they will make China the third country to perform a soft landing on Mars after the Soviet Union and the United States and the second country to drive a robotic rover on the Red Planet.

NASA has landed the only successful rovers on Mars to date.

The seemingly flawless launch Thursday by the Long March 5 rocket gives Chinas most powerful launcher an 80 percent success record after five flights. The Long March 5 failed on its second test flight in 2017, but has now logged three consecutive successes.

Tianwen 1 is Chinas next leap in Solar System exploration after a series of progressively complex robotic expeditions to the moon.

Most recently, China has landed two rovers on the Moon, including the first to explore the surface of the lunar far side. The next Chinese lunar mission, named Change 5, is scheduled for launch on a Long March 5 rocket late this year on a mission to return samples from the Moon.

China officially started development of the Mars mission in 2016.

It will be the countrys second attempt to reach Mars with a robotic probe, following the Yinghuo 1 orbiter, which was stranded in Earth orbit after launch as a piggyback payload on Russias failed Phobos-Grunt mission.

Benefiting from the engineering heritage of Chinas lunar exploration programme,the Chinese national strategy set Mars as the next target for planetary exploration, wrote Wan Weixing, chief scientist of Chinas Mars exploration programme, in a paper published this month by the science journal Nature Astronomy. Chinas first Mars mission is named Tianwen 1, and aims to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission.

Wan died in May after a long illness.

Chinese officials announced the Tianwen name for the countrys planetary missions in April. The name Tianwen comes from the work of ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan, meaning quest for heavenly truth, according to the China National Space Administration, or CNSA, the countrys space agency.

The countrys first Martian probe will conduct scientific investigations about the Martian soil, geological structure, environment, atmosphere, as well as water, CNSA said in a statement.

After reaching Mars in February, the Tianwen 1 spacecraft will initially enter a long-period capture orbit around the Red Planet. The orbiter will eventually settle in a loop around Mars ranging between 265 kilometres and nearly 12,000 kilometres over the Martian poles.

As soon as next April, the lander and rover modules will detach from the orbiter to begin a descent through the Martian atmosphere. Radar soundings from orbit have indicated the presence of a reservoir of ice containing as much water as Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes, in the Utopia Planitia region targeted by Tianwen 1s lander.

The Tianwen 1 orbiter is designed to operate for at least one Martian year, or about two years on Earth. The solar-powered rover, fitted with six wheels for mobility, has a life expectancy of at least 90 days, Chinese officials said.

Chinese scientists say the Tianwen 1 mission will perform a global survey of Mars, measuring soil and rock composition, searching for signs of buried water ice, and studying the Martian magnetosphere and atmosphere. The orbiter and rover will also observe Martian weather and probe Marss internal structure.

The orbiters seven instruments include a:

The Tianwen 1 rover is cocooned inside a heat shield for a fiery descent to the Martian surface. After releasing from the orbiter mothership, the lander will enter the red planets atmosphere, deploy a parachute, then fire a braking rocket to slow down for landing.

Tianwen 1 is going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try, and coordinate observations with an orbiter, Wan wrote in Nature Astronomy. No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way. If successful, it would signify a major technical breakthrough.

Scientifically, Tianwen 1 is the most comprehensive mission to investigate the Martian morphology, geology, mineralogy, space environment, and soil and water-ice distribution.

The rovers six science payloads include a:

The rovers ground-penetrating radar would be one of the first science instruments of its kind to reach the surface of Mars. NASAs Perseverance rover carries a comparable instrument to scan subsurface layers of the Martian crust in search of water ice deposits.

Tianwen 1 is a Chinese-led project, but scientists and support teams from several countries have agreed to provide assistance on the mission.

Scientists from theInstitut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Plantologie, or IRAP, in France contributed to a Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy instrument on the Tianwen 1 rover.

French scientists, with support from the French space agency CNES, provided guidance to their Chinese counterparts on the spectroscopy technique, which uses a laser to zap a pinhead-size portion of a rock, and a spectrometer to analyze the light given off by plasma generated by the lasers interaction with the rocks surface.

The technique allows an instrument to determine the chemical make-up of rocks on Mars.

The discussions between French and Chinese scientists were intended to maximize the quality of the data produced by the Tianwen 1 rover, according to Agnes Cousin, a planetary scientist at IRAP who worked with Chinese researchers developing the rovers instruments.

French scientists from the same research institute helped develop the ChemCam instrument on NASAs Curiosity rover and the SuperCam payload set for launch 30 July on NASAs Perseverance Mars rover. ChemCam and SuperCam use the same Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy technique as the Tianwen 1 rover.

Researchers from France provided a norite calibration target to fly on the Tianwen 1 rover. Its similar to a unit on NASAs Curiosity rover used to calibrate ChemCams measurements by turning the instrument on a target like the rock norite with a known composition.

The SuperCam instrument on NASAs Perseverance rover will us a different type rock as a calibration target, but Cousin said scientists at her lab in France will still be able to cross-calibrate measurements from Curiosity, Perseverance, and the Tianwen 1 rover.

Scientists from the Space Research Institute at the Austrian Academy of Sciences assisted in the development of the magnetometer on the Tianwen 1 orbiter and helped calibrate the flight instrument.

Argentina is home to a Chinese-owned deep space tracking antenna that will be used to communicate with Tianwen 1 after launch. The European Space Agency has agreed to provide communications time for Tianwen 1 on its own worldwide network of deep space tracking stations, and help with the probes navigation on the journey to Mars.

The launch of the Tianwen 1 Mars mission Thursday occurred less than four days after the launch of the Hope Mars probe developed by the United Arab Emirates, and a week before NASAs Perseverance Mars rover is scheduled for blastoff.

The ever-changing positions of the planets only allow for missions to make a direct trip from Earth to Mars once every 26 months or so. The Mars launch window opened this year in mid-July and extends until mid-August.

While NASA and US scientists are aiding the UAEs Hope Mars orbiter, NASA has no such role on Chinas Tianwen 1 mission. NASAs Deep Space Network, which provides tracking and communications coverage for numerous US and international space probes, has not been called up to support Tianwen 1s voyage to Mars.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine congratulated China on the successful launch Thursday.

With todays launch, China is on its way to join the community of international scientific explorers at Mars, Bridenstine tweeted. The United States, Europe, Russia, India, and soon the UAE will welcome you to Mars to embark on an exciting year of scientific discovery. Safe travels Tianwen-1!

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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China launches robotic mission to orbit, land, and drive on Mars - Astronomy Now Online

Citizen scientists recently helped direct astronomers to a pair of objects that straddle the line between planets and stars.

These newly-spotted substellar objects are brown dwarfs, which share many elements in common with stars. However, these gaseous bodies don't have enough mass to start nuclear fusion in their core, so they resemble planets more than stars.

The newfound brown dwarfs have very unusual compositions. They are the most planet-like brown dwarfs to be observed in the Milky Way's oldest populations of stars, NASA officials said in a statement. They also might help researchers learn more about planets outside the solar system.

Related: Best night sky events of July 2020 (stargazing maps)

The citizen scientists who spotted both objects were part of the ongoing NASA-funded Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project. They were looking through spacecraft data from NASA's WISE and NEOWISE missions; both missions are chapters in the life of a single spacecraft called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.

And the objects that the collaboration recently found, now called WISE 1810 and WISE 0414, are weird.

When scientists studied them, they were surprised to see that these two brown dwarfs have very little iron compared to what's usually observed in brown dwarfs. This is a telltale sign that they are very old. The pair is estimated to be about 10 billion years old and to have a mass of about 75 times the mass of Jupiter, NASA said.

If these brown dwarfs formed with low levels of metal, so might ancient exoplanets. This could be a reason to search for old metal-poor exoplanets or alien worlds that orbit ancient metal-poor stars. Further research into this brown dwarf population could answer questions about how dependent the planet formation process is on the presence of metals.

A study accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and uploaded to the preprint server arXiv.org details these findings. Its lead author is Adam Schneider from Arizona State Universitys School of Earth and Space Exploration in Tempe. Schneider first spotted WISE 1810 in 2016.

NASA representatives said Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 has contributed to more than 1,600 brown dwarf discoveries.

Follow Doris Elin Urrutia on Twitter @salazar_elin. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Citizen scientists and astronomers find two strange, ancient brown dwarfs - Space.com

The Red Lake of Stars: Years ago, before over-fishing, Little Redfish Lake was called as such due to ... [+] the vast numbers of salmon turning the lake a red colour. The red colouration is no longer seen because of salmon, but the colour of sunsets and airglow during the night still turn the waters a vibrant red. It is these beautiful warm echoes of red, combined with the mirror-like reflections of the Sawtooth Mountains in the distance and the alignment of the Milky Way with the mountains that make Little Redfish Lake one of the most spectacular places the photographer has ever shot at night. The photographer recalls that we were fortunate enough that night to have the lakeshore to ourselves, just three of us, and a rather excited dog who tried his best not to run into our tripods! We spent the sunset here, waiting for the stars to come out and the Milky Way core to rise, marvelling at the red colour of the water.

Earlier this week I posted a selection of my favorites from a long list of shortlisted images from the newly-announced Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year2020 from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, London.

I short-changed you. Although I tried my best to select the most intriguing and impressive images from each of the nine categories, there were just so many beautiful images that show-off my favorite night sky sights of allthe Milky Way and the aurorathat it deserves a second visit.

Besides, although astrophotography is growing as a hobby as cameras improve, that is a very wide category and includes many technical deep-sky close-ups using telescopes. For me, its all about nightscapes and astro-landscape photography; photos that showcase the night sky.

Since its now Milky Way-spotting season across the world (look to the south after midnight from a dark sky destination and youll see our galaxy arcing across the sky), here are all of the shortlisted images from the eye-catching Skyscapes category ... along with a sprinkling of other Milky Way and aurorae images from other categories.

Enjoy the celestial show!

Galactic Portal: On the photographers trip to Australia, he travelled to the coastal town of Kiama, ... [+] where he captured his first Milky Way image of the year his first Milky Way image taken from the Southern Hemisphere. Once the sun set, the photographer made his way into the cave and waited for a few hours for the core of the Milky Way to appear. Being unfamiliar with the southern sky, the photographer was surprised to also see Jupiter appear soon after.

Beyond the Fog: the photographer had to wait, drenched on a rickety bridge until the thick fog had ... [+] cleared. He was rewarded with noctilucent clouds in the sky, the outlines of which were reflected in the mirror of the calm river. The photographers patience paid off as he caught the last outline of the departing mesospheric storm.

Cold Night on the Yellowstone: In mid-March, shortly after the core of our galaxy is visible above ... [+] the horizon, it rises in the final hours of darkness before dawn. Shooting this panorama scene, while night-time fog hung low over riverside cottonwood trees and the distant mountains of the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness glowed from the light of countless stars, the photographer felt that he was able to capture a connectedness between this world and the one above a hint of changing seasons, and a sense that Nature continues to provide countless wonders for all willing to stop and look.

The Cave of the Wild Horses: Located in the heart of the desert in Southern Utah, the Cave of the ... [+] Wild Horses, with its copious wildlife, petroglyphs, rock varnish, and framed view of the summer Milky Way in its entrance, makes for a fairy-tale place to take astrophotographs. This photograph is one of the most complicated that the photographer has taken to date due to the location of the cave and the number of foreground images taken. Getting to the cave involves a long hike through the desert, over sandstone plateaus, through brush and desert sand. Upon reaching the cave, the photographer decided that she wanted to take a large panorama in order to preserve the feeling of looking out of the cave to the sky beyond.

The Red Lake of Stars: Years ago, before over-fishing, Little Redfish Lake was called as such due to ... [+] the vast numbers of salmon turning the lake a red colour. The red colouration is no longer seen because of salmon, but the colour of sunsets and airglow during the night still turn the waters a vibrant red. It is these beautiful warm echoes of red, combined with the mirror-like reflections of the Sawtooth Mountains in the distance and the alignment of the Milky Way with the mountains that make Little Redfish Lake one of the most spectacular places the photographer has ever shot at night. The photographer recalls that we were fortunate enough that night to have the lakeshore to ourselves, just three of us, and a rather excited dog who tried his best not to run into our tripods! We spent the sunset here, waiting for the stars to come out and the Milky Way core to rise, marvelling at the red colour of the water.

Something Old, Something New: The incredible site of the old Lithgow Blast Furnace has been restored ... [+] as a heritage icon in the area reflecting on the past history of the beginnings of the iron and steel industries in Australia. With some prior planning, visiting at night provides the mesmerising opportunity to capture the Galactic Core in the Milky Way as it passes overhead.

Stargazing Giant: this image is the view of the Milky Way rising above the Moai at Ahu Akivi. Ahu ... [+] Akivi is a particularly sacred place in Easter Island in the Valparaso Region of Chile, looking out towards the South Pacific Ocean. The site has seven moai, all of equal shape and size, and is also known as a celestial observatory that was set up around the 16th century. The shot highlights the central bulge of the Milky Way, the constellation Scorpio, as well as the planets Jupiter and Saturn.

Meeting: After a long hike and a little bit of climbing to the top of the mountain, the photographer ... [+] was able to see the Milky Way. He only had five minutes time to take the panorama shot before the clouds moved. The photographer and his friend are pictured standing on the edge, looking out at the sky and over the city of Fssen in Germany.

Beautiful Persian Gulf Nights: On one of the many hiking trails along Iran's coastline, the ... [+] photographer discovered this incredible lookout. The scale of the vista encouraged the photographer to capture a 360 degree panoramic image of the entire sky using 60 15-second exposures. The movement of the clouds meant that the photographer had a short time to capture the Milky Way. The photographer is pictured, enjoying the wonderland he stumbled across.

Milky Way and Meteor at Porthgwarra: Porthgwarra is a sheltered fishing cove in the west of Cornwall ... [+] and the U-shape of the narrow cove is perfect for framing the Milky Way. There was likely to be a boat in the cove but the photographer was very fortunate to find it perfectly positioned in the centre of the old slipway. The photographer shot several non-tracked sky exposures from the same tripod position to capture the cliffs and horizon (as these were blurred in the tracked shot) and in one, she was lucky enough to capture a meteor, which she copied into the final image. This is one of the photographers favourite locations in Cornwall and it was a magnificent night under the stars.

Geysir Aurora: Close to the Spring and Autumn Equinox, the Earth's magnetic field aligns with the ... [+] incoming solar wind to create a better chance for aurora activity. The photographer had been waiting for signs of solar storm near the equinox date hoping that the Russell-McPherron effect would kick in. During the last weekend in September it seemed there would be favourable terrestrial and space weather conditions, so the photographer travelled with a friend to Iceland. They were not disappointed. The northern lights danced all weekend, with clear skies every night. This shot shows the famous Geysir of Iceland preparing to blow with the aurora behind it.

Stokksnes Aurora: This image captures the stunning Stokksnes looking to the Vestrahorn and the most ... [+] powerful and beautiful night of aurora the photographer had ever seen. He travelled 1250 miles to try and capture his dream. In order to get the shot, the photographer ended up knee-deep in the North Atlantic in -6 degrees Celsius. The challenge was to capture the reflections in the water, on the black sand beach, and also not to over-expose the aurora. The photographer describes this as a truly awe-inspiring experience and one he feels blessed to have witnessed and captured on camera.

Northern Dragon's Eye:The photographer loves to travel, especially exploring the north and chasing ... [+] the Northern Lights. Trying to capture how ordinary things can take magical forms under the lights, the photographer selected and lit this rocky outcrop and waited for the aurora to work its magic.

Hamny Lights: After two weeks of storm, clouds and snow in the Lofoten Islands, the sky finally ... [+] cleared up, providing perfect conditions for hunting the northern lights. The photographer waited patiently in their car for the light show to begin and on the first sign of the aurora borealis in the sky, he set up his camera at this famous overlook of the idyllic fishing village Hamny. The image is a manual exposure blend consisting of one base image for the sky and foreground plus a total of seven bracketed images to balance the highlights and shadows in the fishing village and water.

Kynance Cove under the Milky Way: This image is only the photographer's second attempt at shooting ... [+] the Milky Way. It shows our galaxy over Kynance Cove in Cornwall, a beautiful spot with dark skis. It was taken on a cold, but fabulous night under the stars. As it was July, the sky was very blue, with full darkness only for about an hour. The foreground was taken at dusk and the sky is a stack of 4 images of 25 seconds taken later when the Milky Way appeared, the sky and foreground blended together in post processing.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

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Worlds Best Nightscape Photos: 15 Shortlisted Images For Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2020 - Forbes

"The heavens declare the glory"

NORTH CANTON July has been an auspicious month for stargazers like the Rev. David Ross, a lifelong of student of astronomy.

Hes been watching the Comet NEOWISE, which can be seen unaided in Northeast Ohio, just prior to sunrise. It will not return for 6,800 years.

On Sunday, the full moon, Jupiter and Saturn will align. On July 29, the Southern Delta Aquariids meteor shower will occur in the northeast skies.

"Theres always something interesting going on up there," he said.

Ross, a retired minister who co-pastors Simpson United Methodist Church in Plain Township with his wife, Barb, said the stars are a gift of Gods creation to provide humans with a sense of awe and wonder.

"I grew up in the 60s when the space program was all the rage," he said. "That just kind of stoked my interest over the years. Ive been able to enjoy building a telescope and taking pictures of comets, like Hale-Bopp."

In past years, Ross has done presentations on the Bethlehem Star.

"Certainly the Gospel mentions the Star of Bethlehem," he said. "Over the years, Ive come to appreciate, in terms of faith, the wonder of the world around us."

Ross cites theologians such as William Brown, who have noted that the Bibles "wisdom" literature - Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job and others - contributes to the formation of character through extolling natures wonders.

"If youre able to open yourself up through the gift of creation and the strange things which humble us, thats an important element for building character," he said. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

Ross recalls being in awe during the last solar eclipse, which he saw in Nashville.

"Its an uncanny feeling to see that. To think that people in earlier times and ages must have wondered what this is all about," he said. "In 2024, its going to be the full megillah. The line goes through Wooster and Cleveland, so we dont have to travel very far."

He noted that ancient people viewed comets as a bad omen. Prior to Comet NEOWISE, there were two others in March and April.

"I think the Lords trying to tell us something," he laughed. "Of course, hes always trying to tell us something. If it takes a comet to do that..."

Ross said he thinks the current pushback against science is a result of institutions being buffeted by scandals.

"So many institutions and authority figures have been undermined," he said. "Everybody seems to think they can go their own way and be their own authority. With the virus, I would have thought the science behind how we stay well would have been one the place where we put some trust.

"In church we pray for people who are sick, but hope the doctors do their best. Some challenge is appropriate, but we see what can happen if everything becomes a matter of opinion. It happened in Bible times when the prophets said, `Everyone went their own way. Its a recipe for chaos."

Ross said his favorite Scripture regarding astronomy is Psalm 19:

"The heavens declare the glory of God."

"C.S. Lewis said he thought those lines were some of the most beautiful written in the English language," he said. "Hes someone who had a real sense of how the stars and sky through the ages have spoken to religious people and nonreligious people."

Lewis "Narnia" series, he noted, makes use of stars and planets in their plots.

In 2014, the Star of Bethlehem Conference observed its 400th anniversary at University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The group was founded by Johannes Kepler, who wrote a theory contending there was an alignment of the planets.

"For me, its less the scientific search than the wonder," Ross said. "I got interested in Bethlehem Star from `Its a Wonderful Life."

The film opens on an image of a group of galaxies known as Stephans Quintet.

"(Director) Frank Capra had a lifelong interest in astronomy," Ross said. "He studied at what became Cal Tech. At the time, those galaxies were the definition of things to wonder about. Its key element of the storyline."

Last year, Ross spoke at festival in Seneca Falls, N.Y., which honors the film.

"Its not until George (Bailey) changes his perspective, its after that hes able to see the stars," Ross said. "Its after he comes back from the bridge that hes able to see the stars again."

Ross urges people to visit Stark County Wilderness Center Education Director Robin Gills Facebook page, which features information on stargazing.

"It doesnt take a group or gathering to enjoy astronomy," he said.

Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @cgoshayREP

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Pastor-astronomer: Recent solar events are gifts of awe - Massillon Independent

Black holes don't glow - in fact, they're famous for doing the opposite. But if they're actively devouring material from the space around them, that material can blaze like a billion X-ray Suns.

And for the first time, astronomers have now seen that blaze mysteriously snuffed out, before gradually returning to brightness.

The supermassive black hole is a beast clocking in at 19 million solar masses, powering a galactic nucleus 275 million light-years away, in a galaxy called 1ES 1927+654.

Over a period of just 40 days, astronomers watched as its corona absolutely plummeted in brightness, before rising again to shine brighter than before.

"We expect that luminosity changes this big should vary on timescales of many thousands to millions of years," said physicist Erin Kara of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

"But in this object, we saw it change by [a factor of] 10,000 over a year, and it even changed by a factor of 100 in eight hours, which is just totally unheard of and really mind-boggling."

There are several components to the area immediately around a black hole. There's the event horizon; that's the famous "point of no return", at which even light speed is not sufficient to attain escape velocity.An active black hole also has an accretion disc, a huge disc of material swirling into the object, like water circling a drain.

And just outside the event horizon of an active black hole, around the inner edge of the accretion disc, is the corona.

This is a region of scorchingly hot electrons thought to be powered by the black hole's magnetic field, acting like a synchrotron to accelerate the electrons to such high energies that they shine brightly in X-ray wavelengths.

Astronomers first noticed something strange occurring in 1ES 1927+654 in 2018, when the All-Sky Automated Survey for Super-Novae (ASASSN) - an automated survey looking for bright flashes of light across the entire sky - caught an incredibly bright flare from the galaxy, 40 times its normal brightness.

This caught astronomers' attention, and they pointed a bunch of telescopes in the galaxy's direction to find out more. For a while, everything was pretty normal - but then, around 160 days after the flare, 1ES 1927+654's nucleus started to dim. Over a period of 40 days, the X-ray glow was totally snuffed out.

"After ASSASN saw it go through this huge crazy outburst, we watched as the corona disappeared," Kara said. "It became undetectable, which we have never seen before."

But then the brightness started to steadily climb again. By 300 days after the initial flare, the galaxy's nucleus was shining almost 20 times more brightly than it had been prior to the initial event.

"We just don't normally see variations like this in accreting black holes," said astrophysicist Claudio Ricci of Diego Portales University in Chile, and lead author of the study.

"It was so strange that at first we thought maybe there was something wrong with the data. When we saw it was real, it was very exciting. But we also had no idea what we were dealing with; no one we talked to had seen anything like this."

Astronomers are not entirely sure how black hole coronae are generated and powered. But if, as theorised, it has something to do with the black hole's magnetic fields, then the dramatic changes observed in 1ES 1927+654's black hole could have been caused by something disrupting those magnetic fields.

We know that black holes can change pretty rapidly when they capture and devour a star that ventures just a little too close. The star is torn apart in a process called tidal disruption, screaming a flare of bright light, before getting slurped beyond the event horizon to meet its mysterious fate.

And if a runaway star so happened to encounter 1ES 1927+654's black hole, the events could fit the observed changes in the X-ray radiation. First, the star is tidally disrupted, causing the initial flare. Then debris from the star could have temporarily disrupted the black hole's magnetic field, after which it rebuilt itself as the space around the black hole settled back into a more normal state.

And that could be an important clue for understanding the radius within which a magnetic field controls a black hole corona.

"What that tells us is that, if all the action is happening within that tidal disruption radius, that means the magnetic field configuration that's supporting the corona must be within that radius," Kara said.

"Which means that, for any normal corona, the magnetic fields within that radius are what's responsible for creating a corona."

If a star was responsible for the event, the team calculated that the tidal disruption had to have occurred within four light minutes of the black hole's centre, around half the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

But there could be some other reason for the light show.

We know that black hole coronae can vary in brightness, although generally that occurs on much longer timescales. It's possible that the extreme behaviour observed in 1ES 1927+654 is actually also pretty normal behaviour - we just haven't spotted it until now.

"This dataset has a lot of puzzles in it," Kara said. "But that's exciting, because it means we're learning something new about the universe. We think the star hypothesis is a good one, but I also think we're going to be analyzing this event for a long time."

The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Read more:

For The First Time Ever, Astronomers Have Witnessed a Black Hole 'Blink' - ScienceAlert