X-ray probe catches a bright blast from Milky Way's colossal black hole

NASA / JPL-Caltech

These are the first, focused high-energy X-ray views of the area surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, called Sagittarius A*. The three images on the right side show Sagittarius A* before, during and after an X-ray flare that was spotted in July.


For years, astronomers have known about the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, but these pictures from NASA's NuSTAR telescope show a rare view of the usually sleeping giant gobbling down a cosmic snack.

"We got lucky to have captured an outburst from the black hole during our observing campaign," Caltech's Fiona Harrison, the $165 million mission's principal investigator, said today in a NASA news release. "These data will help us better understand the gentle giant at the heart of our galaxy and why it sometimes flares up for a few hours and then returns to slumber."


NuSTAR, also known as the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, is an X-ray observatory that was launched in June to study high-energy phenomena such as the tumult that takes place around black holes. Sagittarius A*, which is 4 million times as massive as our sun, is one of the prime targets for observation.

Supermassive black holes like Sagittarius A* commonly form at the center of big galaxies: In fact, they may be an essential piece of the galaxy formation puzzle, and some of them can get pretty violent. Our galaxy's black hole is uncommonly quiet, however, and that's probably a good thing. Only occasionally does matter from the surrounding area fall into its grip. As that matter is sucked into the singularity, it heats up and emits a blast of radiation.

NuSTAR happened to be in the right place at the right time to observe Sagittarius A* for two days in July, along with other observatories. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was watching for lower-energy X-rays, while the Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea was taking infrared images.

During the observations, a bright X-ray flash flared up. The emissions were given off by matter that was heated up to about 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 mllion degrees Celsius), NASA said. The high-energy readings are being compared with the images in other wavelengths to deepen astronomers' understanding of how black holes gobble up matter and grow.

"Astronomers have long speculated that the black hole's snacking should produce copious hard X-rays, but NuSTAR is the first telescope with sufficient sensitivity to actually detect them," Columbia University's Chuck Hailey, a member of the mission science team, said in today's statement.

Get ready for a gluttonous orgy
NuSTAR and other black-hole watchers are getting set to watch Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* for short, go into full gobble mode next year: A huge cloud of dust and gas known as G2 is approaching the black hole, and when it gets close enough, gravitational forces will start pulling material in and heating it up. If July's event was a snack, G2's close encounter will be a gluttonous orgy.

Just this week, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California released a supercomputer simulation showing how the cloud will be disrupted as it passes by Sgr A*. That simulation suggests that the close encounter will last several months, and that G2 will be totally gone in less than a decade.

Fragile et al. via College of Charleston / LLNL

This three-dimensional volume visualization spans the period 2010 to 2020, showing the cloud of dust and gas known as G2 as it approaches the Sgr A* black hole near the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

"It will just sort of break up into some sort of incoherent structure," Peter Anninos, a computational physicist at Livermore Lab, said in a news release. "Much of it will join the rest of the hot accretion disk around the black hole, or just fall and get captured by the black hole. It will lose a lot of energy, but not all of it. It will become so diffuse that it's unlikely that any remnant of the gas will continue on its orbital track."

Check out this Web page for QuickTime animations showing what scientists think will happen to the cloud, and stay tuned for updates on the dietary preferences of our galaxy's not-always-sleeping giant.

More about black holes:


The G2 computer simulation is the subject of a paper due for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, titled "3D Moving-Mesh Simulations of Galactic Center Cloud G2." In addition to Anninos, the authors include P. Chris Fragile and Julia Wilson of the College of Charleston, as well as Stephen D. Murray of Livermore Lab.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Discuss this post

Did not the Mayans call it the womb?

I disagree with the black hole concept as it doesn't agree with my surroundings. There is this cycle a continuous cycle.
I would prefer to think of it as a factory where things are produced through the consumption of resources.

Maybe it isn't done in the "black hole itself maybe the black hole is a vessel a transport mechanism.

Recycle!

  • 1 vote
Reply#1 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 10:58 PM EDT

Not every article requires someone's 2 cents. Ponder that for a moment.

  • 10 votes
#1.1 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:02 AM EDT

I don't think the Mayans has a clue about blackholes.

  • 4 votes
#1.2 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 11:10 AM EDT

Dude ! Stop smoking pot !

  • 2 votes
#1.3 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:19 PM EDT

Thanks for your 2 cents!
Did you ask the Mayans? My point is it doesn't matter what u think! Genius!
Not till ur mom trims her beard and stops humping ur brother.

Ahhh em back to reality.

How arrogant we all are!
"We all" does include me gods greatest creation!

    #1.4 - Thu Oct 25, 2012 4:03 PM EDT
    Reply

    Blast from the past.

    • 1 vote
    Reply#2 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:18 AM EDT

    Foxdrake... I'm a creationist... (not saying you agree or disagree) and I must say... their is much wisdom in your statement... well said.

      Reply#3 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:21 AM EDT

      Foxdrake, have to admit I love your comment. Best thing I've read on the vine in a long time. But then, that's my 2 cents, so I'll shut up now.

      • 3 votes
      Reply#4 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 10:51 AM EDT

      Technically, this has already happened, and we have yet to watch it occur.

      • 3 votes
      Reply#5 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 11:03 AM EDT

      Yes...and very cool stuff! It's great that we have technology to gather these data. Just think what the technology will be like for our grandkids!

      • 1 vote
      #5.1 - Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:39 PM EDT
      Reply

      @LordFoxdrake, Heres Your 2 cents, Back! Your statement contradicts itself!

        Reply#6 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 11:25 AM EDT

        None of the snacking can be in REAL TIME. That time has passed. Unless light travels faster than light, how does that work ?

        Pretty cool stuff. including the G2 Computer Modeling .

          Reply#7 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 11:49 AM EDT

          Looking at these things is like watching a gorgeous woman in your neighbourhood. You can speculate all you want about her but you will never end up beside her to observe first hand if she does or is all those things you dream about.

          • 3 votes
          Reply#8 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:24 PM EDT

          Loser

            #8.1 - Thu Oct 25, 2012 3:55 PM EDT
            Reply

            There has been a lot of hype about the behavior of Black
            Holes that is all still very theoretical. One such conjecture is that Black
            Holes can grow or shrink based on their environmental situations. However there is no real empirical evidence
            that Black Holes have grown or shrunken. While there are observations of the
            release of energy consistent the annihilation of matter, these observations are
            the representative behavior of conditions upon the Event Horizon of the Black
            Hole and not the inner works of the Black Hole itself. If fact our best
            evidence ever was provided with the observations of the three-telescope
            interferometry. The astrophysicists described their findings as a ring of hot
            dust that marks the transition from a more-distant mixture of gas and dust in a
            toroidal (doughnut-shaped) structure, to a gaseous disk closer to the black
            hole. The dusty part, he said, is interesting because it dominates the infrared
            emission of active galactic nuclei and can be easily observed. However there
            are no measurements relevant to growth such as increased density relative to
            its static size or increased size relative to its static density. And the
            latest consensus is that there is not a relevant relationship between the
            observable size of the accumulated bulge about the Black Hole and the size of
            the Black Hole itself.

            Rather what has been observed are many Black Holes of
            varying sizes and behaviors; and from these collective observations scientists
            have conjectured upon the possible evolution of Black Holes upon the principles
            following the same pattern of gravitational accretion as normal matter. Problem
            is that there is no real empirical evidence that normal matter exists at the
            center of a Black Hole. Even stellar growth is more relevant to the behavioral state
            of nuclear reactions within the star, relative to its energy versus mass
            density.

            There also exists variant theories for the existence of
            Black Holes; one hypothesis has Black Holes being created from the collapsed
            stellar core of larger than three solar masses, while another has black holes
            predating stars and forming upon the instance of the Big Bang. In fact, the
            concept of a star growing or shrinking has little to do with gravitational
            accretion. So if a Black Hole is just a converted state of stellar evolution, then
            why should we expect that the Black Hole size should be dependent on the amount
            of material being attracted and annihilated upon its Event Horizon? And
            considering the Black Hole radiation jets act as the safety valve for the
            reactions within a Black Hole, one might speculate that, like a star, the size
            of the Black Hole has more to do with its internal reactions and less to do
            with the matter being converted upon its Event Horizon.

            An alternative theory present the hypothesis
            that dark matter and dark energy were the original conditions of the universal
            persistence and that gravitational attraction may be alternately viewed as dark
            energy repulsion. Such an alternative perspective might support the notion that
            that SpaceTime provides for greater dark energy upon greater void displacement;
            i.e. the intrusion of positive mass density tends to fill the void, and the
            surrounding dark matter per volume compensates by increasing its negative
            density (or increasing the negative density of dark matter). Consequently the
            greatest force of dark energy repulsion is presented upon the greatest negative
            density of dark matter. With this alternative perspective, a Black Hole is the
            result of a high negative density for its involved dark matter rather than a
            high positive density for it involved baryonic matter.

            • 1 vote
            Reply#10 - Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:15 AM EDT
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