Flares Near Milky Way’s Black Hole
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Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Video imagery:
- Artist’s concept of Sagittarius A*: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
- Timelapse, Webb observations of Sagittarius A*: NASA, ESA, CSA, Farhad Yusef-Zadeh (Northwestern), Howard Bushouse (STScI), Leah Hustak (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
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Photos of the solar system.
Text: News From The Universe.
February 21, 2025. Flares Near Milky Way's Black Hole. Artist's Concept.
A photo of the Milky Way.
Over the course of a year, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope repeatedly observed the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, and found a surprising light show.
The supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A, is emitting a constant stream of flares.
Webb detected five big flares per day generated by the turbulent accretion disk of gas and dust swirling around Sagittarius A, as well as small sub-flares.
No pattern was detected. Astronomers think the brightest flares are the result of colliding magnetic fields.
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A graph of relative brightness on April 7, 2024.
Text: Astronomers hope to use Webb to observe Sagittarius A for a longer period of uninterrupted time, to see even finer details and determine if the flares are truly random.
This news was brought to you in part by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD.