The supermassive black hole closest to Earth glows intensely

The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way swallows more matter and glows abnormally.

Scientists are not sure why the supermassive black hole swallows much larger amounts of gas and cosmic dust than previously, Independent reported on September 14. At first, they thought that they were accidentally observing another star. However, after closer investigation, they found that the black hole was behaving abnormally.

The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way glows brightly.(Photo: Futurism).

"We have never seen anything like this in 24 years of studying this supermassive black hole. It's quite quiet and 'eat' moderately , " said Andrea Ghez, a professor of astrophysics at the University of California Los Angeles. Study author, said. Analyzing more than 13,000 images of the black hole, the team found it to be twice as bright as today and unusually two nights this year.

This supermassive black hole is not dangerous to the Earth. It is 26,000 light-years away and the radiation emitted must be 10 billion times stronger than that to affect the Earth.

The type of light they observe often comes from radiation emitted when black holes swallow gas, cosmic dust."The question is, is the black hole entering a new phase, for example, the locking tap is turned off and the amount of air coming in increases for a long time, or are these just the morning offs from a few strange blocks of gas. " , says Mark Morris, a professor of astrophysics at the University of California Los Angeles.

The unusually bright black hole may be due to a star approaching the black hole last summer, G2 cloud mass passing near the black hole in 2014, or due to large asteroids.

The team of scientists will continue to monitor and hope new images will help find the answer. This could also help them understand the evolution and impact of black holes on the universe.