According to a new study published in the journal “Astronomy and Astrophysics” on September 22, astronomers have discovered a hot gas bubble orbiting the black hole at the center of the Milky Way at a staggering speed.
Astronomers have just discovered a hot gas bubble orbiting the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. (Photo: AFP)
Astronomer Maciek Wielgus from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (Germany), the study’s author, stated that the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) telescope in the Andes Mountains of Chile detected several “truly puzzling” phenomena related to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* located about 27,000 light-years from Earth.
Just minutes before ALMA began collecting radio data, the Chandra X-ray Observatory detected a spike in X-rays. This energy explosion created a hot gas bubble surrounding the black hole.
The gas bubble – also referred to as a hot spot – has an orbit similar to that of Mercury around the Sun. However, while Mercury takes 88 days (on Earth) to complete one orbit around the Sun, the gas bubble completes its orbit in just 70 minutes. This means it travels at a speed corresponding to about 30% of the speed of light.
Astronomers indicate that the aforementioned bubble exists for only a few hours. However, they hope this discovery will provide deeper insights into how these enormous galactic “monsters” operate at such extreme speeds that cannot be observed directly.
