Scientists saw a 'Ring of Fire' around a black hole flare that made it visible in only one type of light.
April 15, 2026
Original Paper
A Ring of Fire Orphan γ-Ray Flare in the Neutrino Candidate 3C 120
arXiv · 2604.11310
The Takeaway
Normally, when a black hole erupts, it glows across the entire spectrum, from X-rays to visible light. But astronomers just spotted an 'orphan' flare that was only visible in gamma rays. They explained it with a 'Ring of Fire' mechanism: a high-speed jet of particles smashed into a stationary ring of light around the black hole, scattering photons like a cosmic disco ball. This is the first time we’ve seen such a specific, localized 'light-echo' from a black hole jet. It proves that space is full of hidden structures that we can only see when the right cosmic 'accident' happens to light them up. It’s like seeing the dust in a room only when a single sunbeam hits it.
From the abstract
We present 43\,GHz VLBI observations of the radio galaxy 3C~120 during its brightest $\gamma$-ray outburst (March 2018), recently associated with the IceCube neutrino alert IC-180213A. Despite reaching $L_\gamma = 3.7 \times 10^{44}$\,erg\,s$^{-1}$, contemporaneous X-ray monitoring from INTEGRAL/ISGRI, MAXI/GSC, and \textit{Swift}/XRT revealed no variability across 0.3-200\,keV, nor in B, V, R, and I band optical observations or 37 \& 235\,GHz observations, establishing an orphan flare. High-cad