'Like watching a cosmic volcano erupt': Scientists see monster black hole 'reborn' after 100 million years

A red ribbon of radio energy blasts out of a black hole on a black background.

Scientists have observed a supermassive black hole waking up from a nearly 100 million-year nap.

The black hole lies at the center of a gigantic galaxy that's emitting extremely strong radio waves. A new analysis of these radio emissions reveals the black hole once spewed gargantuan jets of plasma hundreds of thousands of light-years into space, before suddenly shutting off sometime in the distant past. Those jets are now active once again, and they are interacting in complex and chaotic ways with the superheated gas around them, according to the new study.