Three space telescopes have detected an increase in the frequency of X-flares eruptions of a giant black hole located at the center of our galaxy. After a new long-term monitoring process, scientists are trying to figure out if this is a normal behavior that went unnoticed because of limited supervision, or if it is possible that these flares are triggered by the recent passage of a mysterious object.
The supermassive black hole,
aka Sagittarius A, weighs just over 4 million times the mass of the sun and the
X-Rays are produced by hot gas flowing towards the black hole. The new study
reveals that Sagittarius A, only produces an average of one bright X-ray flash
every ten days.
Over 150 observations from
NASA’s Chandra X-ray and XMM-Newton Observatory took place from September 1999
to November 2014. Mysteriously, in the past year, there has been a tenfold
increase in the rate of bright flashes of Sagittarius A, about one per day.
The increase in activity
occurred just after a mysterious object called G2 approached Sagittarius A.
“For several years, we’ve
been tracking the X-ray emission from Sgr A*. This includes also the close
passage of this dusty object” said Gabriele Ponti of the Max Planck Institute
for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany. “A year or so ago, we thought it had
absolutely no effect on Sgr A*, but our new data raise the possibility that
might not be the case.”
“There isn’t universal
agreement on what G2 is,” said Mark Morris of the University of California at
Los Angeles. “However, the fact that Sgr A* became more active not long after
G2 passed by suggests that the matter coming off of G2 might have caused an
increase in the black hole’s feeding rate.”
Researchers previously
thought that object G2 was an extended cloud of gas and dust, but after passing
near Sagittarius A in 2013, the appearance of the object did not change much
apart of being stretched by the gravity of the black hole, this has led experts
to suggest that the mysterious object referred to as G2 isn’t just a cloud of
gas and dust but a star swathed in a dusty cocoon, an incredible phenomena in
space.
Researchers say that it is possible that the increased
activity from Sagittarius A may be a common trait among Black Holes and
unrelated to the passing of object G2 since astronomers have identified other
black holes that behave like Sagittarius A.
“It’s too soon to say for
sure, but we will be keeping X-ray eyes on Sgr A* in the coming months,” said
co-author Barbara De Marco, also of Max Planck. “Hopefully, new observations
will tell us whether G2 is responsible for the changed behavior or if the new
flaring is just part of how the black hole behaves.”
A paper on these findings has been accepted by the
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. A preprint is available
online. This article is updated.
You can read the research
paper here.