A team of astrophysicists has observed a massive display of fireworks emanating from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, surrounding its supermassive black hole. Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, researchers detected rapid changes in brightness over incredibly short timescales, indicating that these bursts originate from the inner edge of the accretion disk, close to the event horizon.
The accretion disk is a swirling disk of gas and dust surrounding Sagittarius A*, the mysterious “void” lurking at the heart of our galaxy. The team found that the disk is continuously flaring with no breaks, producing five to six big flares per day and several small sub-flares or bursts in between.
According to lead researcher Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, two separate processes are responsible for the short bursts and longer flares: minor disturbances within the accretion disk generating faint flickers, similar to solar flares, and magnetic reconnection events causing powerful, blinding eruptions. The team’s findings could provide new insights into the physical processes occurring around black holes.
The James Webb Space Telescope’s advanced capabilities allowed researchers to compare the brightness of events observed at different wavelengths, revealing a time delay between the shorter-wavelength and longer-wavelength events. This discovery provided more clues about the physical processes occurring around the black hole.
To further explore these questions, Yusef-Zadeh and his team plan to use Webb to observe Sagittarius A* for a longer period of time, such as 24 uninterrupted hours, to help reduce noise and enable the researchers to see even finer details.
Source: https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-webb-telescope-reveals-a-never-ending-cosmic-firestorm-at-the-center-of-the-milky-way