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Astrophysicists now believe that the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy known as Sagittarius A is far from a sleeping giant, and could still be emitting a massive jet of energy and radiation causing some to describe the unbelievably massive spacetime anomaly as “leaking”. It is believed that a massive plume, jet, or outburst is spewed forth from the supermassive black hole when it consumes matter, either as small as a cloud of gas or a massive as a star.
According to BGR.com, “The Hubble telescope has discovered circumstantial evidence that the black hole is still smoldering after the outburst two million years ago. Astronomers are currently investigating the data that Hubble has found. That data includes a photograph of a bright knot of gas that Hubble captured around 15 light-years away from the black hole. Based on the information, an invisible plume appears to have impacted the gas.”
“Hubble hasn’t managed to telescope the jet just yet, so NASA is referring to it as a “phantom jet”. However, based on the evidence, scientists believe that it could be a blowtorch-like plume of energy that dates back several thousand years.”
The Supermassive Black Hole That Isn’t Quite Sleeping
In the Astrophysical journal abstract Gerald Cecil, Alexander Y. Wagner, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Geoffrey V. Bicknell, and Dipanjan Mukherjee wrote that the MeerKAT radio continuum and XMM-Newton X-ray images have recently revealed a spectacular bipolar channel at the Galactic Center of the milky way that spans across several degrees. “An intermittent jet likely formed this channel and is consistent with earlier evidence of a sustained, Seyfert-level outburst fueled by black hole accretion onto Sgr A* several Myr ago. Therefore, to trace a now weak jet that perhaps penetrated, deflected, and percolated along multiple paths through the interstellar medium, relevant interactions are identified and quantified in archival X-ray images, Hubble Space Telescope Paschen α images and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array millimeter-wave spectra, and new SOAR telescope IR spectra.”
Cecil wrote that right now the plume being emitted is only the remnants of a previous outburst. However, in the future, we could see a larger outburst that would spread the jet out even farther than it stands now. Should that occur the black hole will release even more particles and radiation for us to observe.
