monster black hole at the center of our galaxy may be releasing huge, gaseous explosions — and now, astronomers think they’ve found the exact spot where the superheated gas is pouring into the Milky Way.
Acting like a giant exhaust vent, the newly discovered feature is a bright region of X-ray energy that is nearly 700 light-years from the galaxy’s supermassive black hole, but connected to it by a tall “chimney” of super-hot gas.
According to new research accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, this X-ray spray results from hot gas, driven by the black hole, traveling up the chimney and colliding with cooler gas in the surrounding medium at more than 2 million mph ( 3.2 million km/h). , sending huge shockwaves rippling across the galaxy.
The discovery could unlock secrets about the supermassive black hole’s eating habits – and help reveal the true nature of some of the most mysterious objects lurking in the galactic center.
“Astrophysicists have long been interested in the movement of material and energy from the center of the Milky Way and its black hole, both to understand what is happening in our cosmic backyard and how galaxies form and evolve,” lead author of the study. Scott Mackeyan astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, said in a STATEMENT. “We’re really excited to find this new piece of the puzzle.”
Networks of black holes
of The supermassive black hole of the Milky WaySagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is approximately 4 million times more massive than the Sun. It sits in the dense, chaotic center of our galaxy, constantly gobbling up unlucky stars, gas clouds, and other matter that gets too close to the event horizon—the point beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape.
But falling matter doesn’t always make it into our black hole. Sometimes, matter is channeled by the powerful magnetic field in jets blasting away from the black hole at high speeds. In 2019, astronomers spotted evidence of our black hole’s messy eating habits when they discovered two large chimneys – one rising above Sgr A* and the other descending below – siphoning hot gas away from the galactic center for hundreds of years light years in any direction.
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This discovery prompted the authors of the new study to investigate the region further. To do this, they used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which is designed to detect extremely hot gases.
“We suspected that the magnetic fields are acting like chimney walls and that hot gas is moving through them, like smoke,” Mackey said. “Now we have discovered an exhaust vent near the top of the chimney.”
Chandra’s observations showed that, near the top of the black hole’s bottom chimney, there is this huge, bright X-ray hole where hot and cold gas are constantly colliding. It is unclear how often Sgr A* ejects gas to fill this region, but previous X-ray studies of the region have found evidence of large eruptions occurring every 100 years or so.
If so, this system of vent and chimney black holes could be the source of some of the most mysterious objects in our galaxy – the giant The Fermi bubble AND eROSITA bubbles, which overlap each other as they wrap around the galactic center like a giant, invisible hourglass. Filled with high-energy gamma rays and X-rays, these mysterious bubbles extend roughly 25,000 light-years above and below our galaxy’s central black hole – spanning about half the width of the Milky Way when measured together.
Astronomers aren’t sure where these bubbles came from, but they’ve long suspected that powerful bursts of energy from Sgr A* could be to blame. The opening of the newly discovered black hole adds fuel to this theory, drawing a relatively straight line from the black hole to the base of the bubble, with a steady stream of hot gas in between.
“Chimneys may be the conduits through which sources in the galactic center provided the energy and particles to feed the Fermi and eRosita bubbles,” the authors write in their study.
The team said the biggest remaining question is whether the bubbles were filled in a single, large black hole explosion long ago or by a series of smaller explosions that occurred regularly over millions of years. Further study of the galactic center and the hungry monster lurking there may help solve this cosmic mystery.