The James Webb Space Telescope has taken us back 13 billion years and captured images of galaxies billions of light-years away.
Recently, scientists shifted their focus to a much closer black hole and observed a stunning display of light.
According to CNN, researchers at Northwestern University studied Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of our Milky Way, located about 26,000 light-years away from Earth.
This observation marked the most detailed examination of Sagittarius A* yet. The scientists noticed bright flashes of light erupting from it, which CNN likened to fireworks.
The study, featured in a new paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggested that these flares often come from accretion disks. These are swirling masses of gas and dust that form around black holes. Although not entirely certain, the researchers believe the flares might have originated just outside the black hole’s event horizon—the boundary where gravity is so strong that even light can’t escape.
Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, a physics and astronomy professor at Northwestern and the lead author of the study, noted the dynamic nature of these flares. “In our data, we saw constantly changing brightness,” he shared. “Then, boom! A burst of brightness appeared, followed by calm.”
Interestingly, these flares seemed to occur at random. “We couldn’t find a pattern in this activity,” Yusef-Zadeh admitted. “Each time we looked, it was something new and exciting.”
Black holes, while effectively invisible, can be “seen” by observing their influence on nearby matter. Anything that gets too close falls into the black hole’s gravitational grip. Matter that gets pulled in creates an accretion disk, heating up as it spirals in, leading to these bright emissions.
While scientists have a good grasp of how black holes function, the reason behind these energetic flares remains a mystery. Yusef-Zadeh pointed out that, although flares are expected from supermassive black holes, Sagittarius A* is unique. “It is always bubbling with activity and never reaches a steady state,” he explained.
Over a year, the team observed Sagittarius A* in eight-to-ten-hour sessions. Each observation revealed something different. “Every time we looked, we saw something remarkable,” Yusef-Zadeh reflected.
These findings deepen our understanding of black holes and the complex dynamics at play around them.
Check out this related article: Unbelievable Rodent Rescue: Watch Mice Try to Revive Their Unconscious Friends!
Source link