Astronomers have detected a mid-infrared flare from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time. This discovery sheds new light on the complex physics driving these energetic outbursts. The flare was observed in an area previously unexplored by scientists and has provided insights into the chaotic environment near the black hole.
The team’s detection, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is currently available on the pre-print server arXiv. The findings were presented at the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in National Harbor, Maryland.
The supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A*, has a mass approximately four million times that of our Sun. Black holes are ultra-dense objects with gravitational fields so strong that not even light can escape their bounds beyond a certain point. The new observation fills a gap in knowledge about the connection between radio and near-infrared wavelengths.
Mid-infrared light, which is longer than visible light but shorter than radio waves, was captured by the Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI). This discovery has provided another piece of evidence about what fuels black hole flares. Cooling electrons in the black hole’s accretion disk release energy to power the flares.
The detection and team’s model offer more clarity and complexity to our understanding of Sagittarius A*. Modeling black hole physics and directly imaging objects are essential for gaining a deeper understanding of these massive and remarkable objects.
Source: https://gizmodo.com/milky-ways-black-hole-just-lit-up-in-a-way-weve-never-seen-before-2000549973