Astronomers have spotted displays of flashing lights and “fireworks” near a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, a finding researchers said could reveal details about how black holes—among the most mysterious objects in space—behave and interact with their environment.
The flares could help physicists better understand how black holes behave, researchers said.
Astrophysicists from Northwestern University observed a series of flares emitting from a disk that orbits Sagittarius A*, a black hole with about 4 million times the mass of the sun, according to a study published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The astrophysicists observed Sagitarrius A* for a total of 48 hours in eight to 10-hour increments over one year using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
The flares are likely emitted from the inner edge of the accretion disk—a flow of materials like gas or plasma that orbits black holes—and up to six larger flares were generated each day in addition to several smaller flashes in between, researchers said.
Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, who led the study, said in an accompanying press release that while flares are common, the displays seen around Sagittarius A* occurred in shorter durations than average and “never [seem] to reach a steady state.”
The varying durations of flares may be caused by the random nature of material flowing into the accretion disk, Yusef-Zadeh said, while the study noted shorter bursts of flight could be caused by plasma being squeezed within the disk, causing a flash of radiation.
Yusef-Zadeh attributed the larger, brighter flares to “magnetic reconnection events,” or when two different magnetic fields collide, releasing particles that move near the speed of light.
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Studying the flares may help astronomers understand the “fundamental nature” of black holes and how they interact with their surroundings, as little is known about how black holes function, researchers said. A time delay between flares provided “more clues” about the physical processes around Sagittarius A*, including more details about how black holes consume the matter around them. Astronomers noted additional observations could provide data to learn how fast Sagittarius A* is consuming matter and how accretion disks behave around black holes.
Sagittarius A* is a supermassive black hole located in the middle of the Milky Way galaxy, located about 26,000 light years from Earth, according to NASA. Astronomers discovered the black hole in 1974 after locating a bright source of radio waves in the Sagittarius constellation. The black hole is one of the few black holes in the universe where astronomers can observe the flow of nearby materials because it’s so close to the Earth. Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles observed a shift in activity near the black hole in 2019, when astronomers observed brightness at levels higher than ever recorded.
Researchers have studied black holes for decades as NASA says they are among the “most mysterious cosmic objects.” Black holes are large concentrations of matter packed into a tiny space, causing them to become increasingly dense so that the gravity below their surface becomes strong enough that nothing can escape, including light. Whenever matter gets too close to a black hole, it undergoes a process of “spaghettification” where it is squeezed horizontally and stretched vertically, NASA said. Most galaxies have black holes are their centers, like the Milky Way’s Sagittarius A*.