Sending tWhen an object gets caught in a black hole's gravitational pull, it'll get drawn in to the point where the immense power of the gravitational field will rip the object apart to pieces. Those pieces will then fall into an accretion disc which is basically the dinner plate for our bottomless pit neighbor, the super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy. That disc will feed the black hole until it runs out or until another object gets caught in the gravitational field and adds to it. Because of all these variances, the accretion disc isn't so much uniform as much as it is clumpy. This means that sometimes the clumpy disc can provide a generous amount of food to the black hole at once and at other times it can only provide short snacks. This can cause variations in energy output by the black hole which in turn affects the density of the jets of energy ejected at its poles (computer simulation video available at source link). The problem is that our resident super massive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) doesn't appear to have had much food. This concept led scientists and astronomers to wonder, could they find out when the last time such a burst of energy had occurred?
Professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn from the University of Sydney, Australia and his colleague from the Australian Astronomical Observatory have been monitoring the area at the center of the Milky Way for quite a long time in hopes to find any remnants or clues of the last burst of energy.
“For twenty years we've seen this odd glow from the Magellanic Stream,” said professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn. “We didn't understand the cause. Then suddenly we realized it must be the mark, the fossil record, of a huge outburst of energy from the center of our galaxy.”
Since its discovery in February 1974, astronomers have been watching Sgr A*, finding characteristics along the way. After monitoring a group of stars orbiting it, scientists were able to measure the black hole's mass. At 4 million times the mass of our Sun, this goliath has made itself right at home with the rest of the Milky Way orbiting around it. The gamma and X-rays emitted by the black hole and the highly radiated region around it are causing the Magellanic Stream to give out a particular wavelength of light called an H-alpha emission. This happens when the ultraviolet radiation from Sgr A* interacts in a certain way with hydrogen atoms in the stream. This glow, in turn, is lighting up a big part of the Magellanic stream.
Because of this, researchers believe that there was a huge discharge of material from the last explosive event caused by Sgr A* and it left behind a footprint. By monitoring this footprint they've also been able to estimate that this burst of energy possibly happened around 2 million years ago, which means that at its peak, the energy output was more than 100 million times as powerful is it is now. This concept then begs more questions. How often do these events happen? Can such a thing happen again? It's possible, but for now scientists will continue watching the super massive black hole for future events like when the interaction of interstellar cloud G2 gave them great images to analyze.
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