The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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This artist’s impression illustrates the mechanism that could be at the origin of the powerful bursts of X-ray light seen from a newly awakened black hole named Ansky.
The European Space Agency's X-ray telescope, XMM-Newton, is playing a crucial role in investigating the recurring X-ray flares coming from this supermassive black hole, lurking at the centre of SDSS1335+0728, a distant galaxy 300 million light-years away.
The extraordinary characteristics of Ansky’s bursts prompted the research team to speculate that the X-ray flares could be coming from highly energetic shocks in the disc, provoked by a small celestial object repeatedly travelling through and disrupting the orbiting material.
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[Image description: A bright disc of purplish, white and gold lines surrounds a black ellipse-shaped area, that looks like a hole in space. A ball of shining material pierces through the disc; an eruption of bright white-to-gold rays encircles the small hole in the disc provoked by the passage of the shining ball.]