A supermassive black hole lurking at the center of M87, a supergiant galaxy 55 million light-years from Earth, is acting far more strangely than anticipated.

Since 2017, astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — an international collaboration combining a global network of radio telescopes — have closely watched the enormous gaping maw, resulting in the first-ever images of a black hole ever captured by humankind.

Now, by comparing observations from 2017, 2018, and 2021, scientists made a surprising discovery about how the magnetic fields near the black hole, dubbed M87*, change over time.

As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, an international team of astronomers discovered that the black hole's polarization flipped between 2017 and 2021

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