Twitter
Advertisement

Astronomers discover hot gas bubble spinning clockwise around a black hole in Milky Way

About 27,000 light years away from Earth, the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* lurks in the centre of the Milky Way.

Latest News
article-main
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

On Thursday, astronomers reported seeing a hot gas bubble spinning at "mind-boggling" speeds around the black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

It is believed that the discovery of the bubble, which only lasted a few hours, will shed light on how these invisible, insatiable, galactic monsters operate.

About 27,000 light years away from Earth, the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* lurks in the centre of the Milky Way, and its powerful gravitational pull is what gives our galaxy its distinctive spiral.

The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, which connects radio dishes around the world to catch light as it vanishes into the mouths of black holes, unveiled the first-ever photograph of Sagittarius A* in May.

According to Maciek Wielgus, an astrophysicist at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, one of those dishes, the ALMA radio telescope in Chile's Andes mountain range, detected something "really puzzling" in the Sagittarius A* data.

Chandra Space Telescope saw a "huge spike" in X-rays just before ALMA's radio data gathering started, Wielgus added.

A recent study that was just published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics describes this energy spike as sending a hot bubble of gas spiralling around the black hole. This energy burst is thought to be similar to solar flares on the Sun.

According to the study's primary author Wielgus, the gas bubble, also referred to as a hot spot, had an orbit that was comparable to Mercury's trip around the Sun.

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement