Scientists Turn James Webb to Examine Black Hole at Center of Our Galaxy and Saw Something Wild

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from our planet.

And in a recent experiment, researchers made the decision to explore a black hole that's much closer to Earth, only to be met with a spectacular display of light.

The spacecraft was sent beyond the Earth to see what its sensitive instruments would detect.

described as resembling pyrotechnics.

These types of flares typically erupt from accretion disks, which are swirling disks of hot gas and dust. Although their exact origin is unclear, the researchers behind this discovery believe it originated from an accretion disk situated just beyond the black hole's event horizon, an area with such intense gravity that not even light can escape.

Suddenly, a huge flash of light appeared and then quickly faded away.

As Yusef-Zadeh notes, these spectacular flares seem to occur at random.

We couldn't find a pattern in this activity," he said. "The activity profile of this black hole was new and interesting every single time we looked at it.

Astronomers can observe black holes because of the effects they have on their surroundings. Any object that gets too close to a black hole gets pulled into its gravitational pull. The dust and gas that gets pulled in start to spin around it at incredibly fast speeds, creating accretion disks that heat up as they supply the black hole.

Although the process that powers black holes is relatively well understood, scientists still don't know exactly why these galaxy- powering bodies release these bright, energetic flares. According to Yusef-Zadeh, the flares seen in Sagittarius A* are exceptional, even for such unpredictable movements.

He explained that flares are expected in almost every supermassive black hole, but ours stands out. It's constantly active and never seems to achieve a steady state.

Over the course of a year, the researchers observed Sagittarius A* in eight-to-ten hour intervals. As Yusef-Zadeh noted, "we noticed changes in every observation over that time."

That's truly impressive.

New Developments from the James Webb Space Telescope: Scientists are Stunned to Discover Black Holes in James Webb Images

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