The strange matter orbits the massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way and pulses gamma-ray radiation aimed at the Earth. (Image credit: Pixabay)
A pair of scientists, Gustavo Magallanes-Guijon and Sergio Mendoza, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, have discovered a strange gaseous blob of matter circling around the massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. While that in itself is an exciting discovery, what's strange is that the matter shoots out gamma-ray radiation, pointed at the Earth, every 76 minutes. The gas is spinning around the black hole, located around 26,700 light-years away from us, at nearly 1/3 the speed of light. The pair's findings may help scientists solve a mystery that has perplexed them for two years.
Formally named Sagittarius A*, the gamma-ray radiation bursts were first noticed hitting the planet in 2021, but scientists knew those bursts were not coming from within the black hole. That's because all black holes are bound by a region known as an event horizon, which marks the point at which nothing can escape. This means that the radiation couldn't be emitted from within that area, so it must be coming from somewhere else in the same vicinity.
Some black holes are known to emit radiation from their immediate surroundings when turbulent conditions arise as they devour gas and dust, which forms a structure known as an accretion disc. As the black hole consumes that matter, the accretion disc can produce a cosmic belch of sorts that can emit light, spanning the electromagnetic spectrum, from low-energy radio waves to high-energy gamma rays. This doesn't account for Sagittarius A* as there's very little dust or gas within its vicinity.
Looking for an answer as to why gamma-ray bursts were being emitted, the scientists decided to look at some data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope collected between June and December 2022. The pair found that the pulses were produced close to the black hole at about once every 76.32 minutes. Moreover, the period of emissions is about half the time between pulses of X-ray radiation also seen coming from the vicinity of the black hole, suggesting both phenomena are related somehow. The discovery could help scientists gain better insight into the areas immediately surrounding black holes, including the mysterious blob currently orbiting the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
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