The Phoenix Paradox

Five point eight billion light-years from Earth, a supermassive black hole called Phoenix A is doing the impossible. At a hundred billion times the mass of our Sun, it should be a destroyer—blasting its galaxy with jets of plasma, heating gas to millions of degrees, and snuffing out every new star. But Phoenix A doesn’t roar. It whispers. Its weak jets stir the gas instead of boiling it, creating a steady rain that feeds the most furious star birth ever seen in a galaxy cluster. Seven hundred and forty new suns every year. This is the story of a cosmic rebel—a black hole that refuses to follow the rules, and the scientists racing to understand why. Join me Josh Reeves for my 118th documentary film. The Phoenix paradox.