"This is the first time we have been able to link the launching of the corona to a flare. This will help us comprehend how supermassive black holes power some of the brightest objects in the cosmos." Dan Wilkins, of Saint Mary's University, said. This is one of the most important discoveries so far. NuSTAR's principal investigator, Fiona Harrison, noted that the nature of the energetic source was "enigmatic," but added that the capability to in fact record the event should have provided some clues about the black hole's size and structure, along with (hopefully) some fresh info on how black holes work. Fortunately for us, this black hole is still 324 million light-years away. So, no matter what bizarre things it was doing, it shouldn't had any effect on our corner of the cosmos.

Astronomers think coronas have one of two likely configurations. The "lamppost" model says they are compact sources of light, similar to light bulbs, that sit above and below the black hole, along its rotation axis. The other model proposes that the coronas are spread out more diffusely, either as a larger cloud around the black hole, or as a "sandwich" that envelops the surrounding disk of material like slices of bread. In fact, it's possible that coronas switch between both the lamppost and sandwich configurations.

The new data support the "lamppost" model and demonstrate, in the finest detail yet, how the light-bulb-like coronas move. The observations began when Swift, which monitors the sky for cosmic outbursts of X-rays and gamma rays, caught a large flare coming from the supermassive black hole called Markarian 335, or Mrk 335, located 324 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Pegasus. This supermassive black hole, which sits at the center of a galaxy, was once one of the brightest X-ray sources in the sky. "Something very strange happened in 2007, when Mrk 335 faded by a factor of 30. What we have found is that it continues to erupt in flares but has not reached the brightness levels and stability seen before," said Luigi Gallo, the principal investigator for the project at Saint Mary's University. Another co-author, Dirk Grupe of Morehead State University in Kentucky, has been using Swift to regularly monitor the black hole since 2007.

In September 2014, Swift caught Mrk 335 in a huge flare. Once Gallo found out, he sent a request to the NuSTAR team to quickly follow up on the object as part of a "target of opportunity" program, where the observatory's previously planned observing schedule is interrupted for important events. Eight days later, NuSTAR set its X-ray eyes on the target, witnessing the final half of the flare event. While we like to think we have a fairly good understanding of space, much of what we count as knowledge is just theory which has yet to be disproved. So it looks like some textbooks will need to be rewritten. And while this particular supermassive black hole is 324 million light-years away, I'm not taking any chances.