NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with the European Space Agency, has recently captured a remarkable beam of light—one that traveled 250 million years across the cosmos to reach the telescope. Its origin traces back to the spiral galaxy UGC 11397 in the constellation Lyra. At first glance, UGC 11397 appears as a typical spiral galaxy, featuring two graceful arms illuminated by stars and surrounded by faint, clumpy dust clouds. Yet at its core lies one of the universe's most enigmatic objects: a supermassive black hole with a mass equivalent to 174 million Suns.

As this supermassive black hole devours nearby gas, dust, and even entire stars, the material is heated to extreme temperatures during its final plunge, emitting a broad spectrum of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves. However, in UGC 11397, thick dust clouds obscure most of this high-energy activity from view in visible light. Fortunately, the actively growing black hole betrays its presence through bright X-ray emission—high-energy rays that penetrate the surrounding dust and were detected by Hubble. Based on this characteristic, astronomers classify UGC 11397 as a Type 2 Seyfert galaxy, in which the central region is hidden in visible light by a torus of dust and gas.

This Hubble observation not only reveals the secrets of the supermassive black hole in UGC 11397 but also provides astronomers with a valuable opportunity to study similar galaxies. Researchers plan to use Hubble to conduct in-depth investigations of hundreds of galaxies like UGC 11397, each harboring a rapidly growing supermassive black hole. Through these observations, astronomers hope to measure the masses of nearby supermassive black holes, gain insight into how such black holes formed in the early universe, and even explore how stars are born in the extreme environments near galactic centers.