The Mystery of a Mega Black Hole Explosion

Have you and your blaster been keeping up with the latest space happenings? Scientists from the University of Sydney found that two million years ago, a gigantic black hole exploded at the center of our galaxy. The eruption was 100 million times more powerful than it is today, and it lit up a cloud that was 200,000 light years away. Those are some impressive numbers!

Photo by Phil Plait

The evidence to support this astonishing finding comes from the Magellanic Stream, which is a strand of hydrogen gas that follows behind our galaxy’s neighboring galaxies, which are simply called the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The researchers have been noticing a peculiar glow shining from the Magellanic Stream, and realized that this glow is a record of the massive outburst of energy when the black hole exploded at the heart of our galaxy many years ago.

The area that envelops all the galaxy’s black holes is called Sagittarius A*, which emits all sorts of radiations. Flickers of flares will appear when small clouds of gas fall onto the hot disk matter that swirls around the black hole. Scientists knew that the galaxy’s stars cannot produce enough ultraviolet that caused the glow they found in the Magellanic Stream, therefore, it can only be explained by the black hole theory.

These black holes can switch on and off within a million years, and the researchers are quite certain that this sort of colossal explosion will happen again in the future.