Two million years ago, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy was 100 million times more powerful than it is today.
Illustration courtesy Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital/NASA
Published September 24, 2013
For years astronomers have been puzzled as to why our Milky Way galaxy's "volcano"—a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at its core—is dormant today.
It seems the answer may simply be that we didn't catch the cosmic monster—weighing at least four million times the mass of our sun—feeding at the right time, according to a new study.
"If we had been around to see it two million years ago, the situation would have been very different," said study co-author Philip Maloney of the University of Colorado in Boulder.
"The Milky Way's black hole was maybe ten million times brighter [then]," he said. "I don't think anyone really had any expectation that SMBH might vary in luminosity by such a huge factor on such a short—relatively speaking—time scale."
(See "Monster Black Holes Gobble Binary Stars to Grow?")
Evidence: "Fossil Imprint"
Astronomers have long suspected there was an ancient outburst from the hibernating black hole, but it's only now that they believe they have found an actual "fossil imprint" of the cosmic monster's last big meal.
The international team's new theory points to a lacy filament of gas, mostly hydrogen, called the Magellanic Stream, which can be seen trailing behind our galaxy's two small companion galaxies: the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.
Maloney believes powerful beams of energy erupting from the SMBH two million years ago hit the stream—causing its hydrogen gas to get ionized and light up, much like the glow of auroras we see here on Earth. This ionization of the Magellanic Stream has puzzled scientists since its discovery two decades ago.
"No one has been able previously to come up with a good model to explain the ionization," said Maloney.
The team now suspects that this glowing stream of extragalactic gas may be the fossil imprint of the SMBH eruption two million years ago. (See black hole photos.)
The estimated orientation and amount of energy of the original outburst, including the cooling time of the illuminated stream, fit very well with the proposed model.
Further evidence for a giant eruption sometime in the distant past has also come in the form of recently detected gamma ray and radio wave signatures of two giant, hot bubbles of gas called Fermi bubbles. Thought to have been belched out by the SMBH, the Fermi bubbles sit above and below the plane of the Milky Way.
Next Outburst Soon?
The question is not if there will be another eruption, but when, scientists say.
Infrared and x-ray satellites have been able to peer into the heart of our galaxy and detect radiation flowing out from the region around the black hole as it rips apart the small, orbiting clouds of gas falling toward it and colliding with it.
Astronomers now believe many gas clouds orbit the SMBH today, and they could trigger a future outburst—in fact, it may be just around the corner.
"They have been monitoring a cloud and predict that it will fall into the black hole at some point in the next year; however, the amount of material will be far less than the event that illuminated the stream," said co-author Greg Madsen, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge.
"It will be much fainter and will pose no threat to Earth, but several powerful telescopes will be poised and ready to watch what happens."
This research has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
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97 comments
i think that ,we live in a multi dimensional world where black hole enter midiate between two or more dimensions
WHITE HOLE .:. BLACK HOLE, only a small peace of the hole thing of what we call creation = manifestation of life ...and we are part of it !
well since light takes so long to reach us from that great of a distance, could this have happened already and we just not realize it yet since the night sky we look at is more than 1,000 yrs old?
What effect will the future eruption have in our galaxy, if any? Is there need for action on the part of humans?
National Geographic science writers make the same error here that they do in all other scientific magazines and journals -- they write about black holes as though they used to exist and currently exist. In truth, no black hole ever existed and no black hole currently exists anywhere in our time frame. Why? Because of relativistic time dilation. As the material on its way to forming a black hole singularity approaches "black-hole-ness," its own incipient-but-not-yet-fully-formed event horizon perpetually-and-ever-more-effectively "decelerates" black hole formation relative to distant observers -- us -- and causes the emerging black hole to literally take forever to complete its formation relative to us. For all time, it approaches but never quite reaches the black hole state, asymptotically, like a little school girl always stepping only one-half of the remaining distance to the school house door. Those things up there with their accretion disks and perpendicular particle jets are incipient-but-not-yet-completed black holes, and relative to distant observers -- us -- they can never escape that state. Relative to us, they are perpetual "prisoners" of their own incipient-but-not-yet-fully-formed event horizons. (That is why they are called "event horizons.") This not not an illusion, but reality. I think that the error scientists make almost across the board is that they learn about relativistic time dilation in college and graduate school, they never internalize it, and then they ignore it as a hard-to-comprehend subject that is "out there" and not important.
In fact, the concept of relativistic time dilation is one-half of the basis for the Theory of Relativity. It is one-half of the reason why it is called "The Theory of Relativity."
This is surely the same for all galaxies. Notice that the center of all galaxies are very bright; it is undoubtedly because supermassive black holes are at the center of all galaxies and attract with gravity so many stars that they look vrery bright. There's still a lot to learn about black holes at the center of all galaxies and elsewhere in the Universe.
This is surely the same for all galaxies. Notice that the center of all galaxies are very bright; it is surely because supermassive black holes are at the center of all galaxies and attract with gravity so many stars that they look vrery bright. There's still a lot to learn about black holes at the center of all galaxies.
where all gonna die :P they just don't want to admit it. joking, its outburst may be much fainter like it said.
This article says: "Evidence: 'Fossil Imprint' Astronomers have long suspected there was an ancient outburst from the hibernating black hole, but it's only now that they believe they have found an actual 'fossil imprint' of the cosmic monster's last big meal. … Maloney believes powerful beams of energy erupting from the SMBH two million years ago hit the stream—causing its hydrogen gas to get IONIZED and light up, much like the GLOW OF THE AURORAS we see here on Earth." (Emphasis added.) So we have all the elements of plasma, but they can't bring themselves to use the term. There is even the notion of a fossil imprint of the "filament." Yet instead of considering the possibility that we may be looking at a fossil imprint of a plasma filament, the scientists are fixed to the gravitational model of a black hole, which is based on a theory that is flawed by self-contradicting non-Euclidean geometry. Are We Ready for a Galaxy Formation Paradigm Shift? Check out this FB Note: https://www.facebook.com/notes/reid-barnes/are-we-ready-for-a-galaxy-formation-paradigm-shiftupdated/462435587142354
In what form might the energy be released during the SMBH explostion?Only x-rays and gamma rays? There must be some other form in which energy is released otherwise how will the hydrogen of Magellanic stream ionize? But what is that form in which the energy is released?
We know so little about what goes on out there so any information like this is valuable and interesting.
Space and space time are always so unpredictable, it's hard to say for sure when it will happen, and how it will affect Earth.... I'm glad we know it's out there now, at least! Who knows what else is out there that we aren't even aware of yet?
I don't want seem stupid,so why haven't we send something in there to see what it really is.
once again i'll ask, will we be able to possibly see a new point of light in the night sky or something once this event's light reaches us? or will it only be visible through powerful telescopes?
karadelik acaba gerçek kara delikmi yoksa yoğun bir demir kütlesimi kendi etrafında dönen çekim alanı çok yüksek kendi ekseni etrafında hızla dönen sönmüş demir siyah bir yıldız kütlesimi
The real question: IS Global Warming to Blame and how can the EPA protect us?
kidding....
I wonder how such a massive eruption would affect things...it would seem to be bad since eruptions are normally bad though. It's like Knowing....just imagine a huge solar flare toasting earth....
Its both exhilarating and inspirational. In short all these discoveries must be used for the betterment of mankind..
Wow, for people of such high intelligence to debate these topics in such detail, there's a lot of rudeness and disrespect going on. Being nice to other human beings is important, too.
Why? A black hole is a collapsed star so massive that it's gravity doesn't even permit light to escape- so why should it be a medium 'between two or more dimensions'?
@Gorgonio Esguerra I believe the more we know of the our Galaxy and even the of the smallest particle, are we able to make a better decision of our place in the Universe. At the rate we are going we will not be around much longer. Just an opinion/observation.
@Darrell Williams DO you have any idea how long that would take? it's taken voyager almost 36 years travelling at about 38,000 mph to get less than 18 light hours from earth
@Darrell Williams For another thing, it's too far. The Voyager 1 space probe has been travelling 32 years, and has only gotten about 0.002 light years from Earth. A light year being the distance light travels in a year (9.5 trillion km).
The Super Massive Black Hole in the center of the galaxy is about 27,000 light years away. So at Voyager's speed, a space probe would take about 432 million years to get there.
@Darrell WilliamsBecause once you are inside, you can never get out. Not even light can escape it. Not only that, but it would take an insanely long time to even GET there.
@FirstName LastNameTY! I couldn't agree more! It baffles me to see so called "intelligent science enthusiasts" being so against the idea that a Higher Intelligence might actually exist (which some choose to call God - making emphasis on the word "some") - after all, there are gazillion facts of science that are yet to be explained, so why the harshness and lack of respect for each other? Wake up people, we are all one, we are stardust, we are all learning. Every person is free to believe what they want. BTW, is it that impossible for science and spirituality to co-exist? Why? Why not? Open your mind to the possibilities. Peace...
@Andrew Booth @prashant kumar Well, if I might pose this additional question. Where does all that material go? Our laws of physics do not explain this phenomenon. It is therefore explained as dimensional. One to one or more dimensions. We do not have proof of this. It is only a theory.
@Tim A @FirstName LastNameScience and spirituality do co-exist. Matter of fact, spirituality may be considered science, too. Most people are unaware of the fact that spirits exist. It's just people's disbelief or unbelief for that matter that prompts them to believe either or but not both. Many religions, esp. those of "Christianity", embrace both ideas as after all, they're not contradictory as mind you there's a great deal of scientific facts in the Bible, which is but a spiritual book (if not The Spiritual Book of Books; now I think I've just given it yet another title). Cheers!
It baffles me in turn that it is so difficult for some people to grasp that Intelligent Design is (at this time) inherently unscientific. It is for this reason that we ought to be hostile to it, especially when it is presented as science.
Intelligent Design is speculation that there is a sentient designer out there who can be the explanation for all the things that are still a mystery. It amounts to this: If we don't at present have an explanation for the complexity of some phenomenon, assume an Intelligent Designer.
This is entirely the same thing primitive people thought about the wind. They didn't have as yet an explanation for what it was, so they assumed it was spirits. There was no evidence that it was spirits, but they thought it was anyway. It is the same as all of the religious creation myths. They couldn't conceive of anything at all that could account for the world around us, so they made up a story and assumed it to be true about how the gods or sometimes one god had created it all. There was no evidence for their gods, but they believed it anyway because nothing else seemed to be able to explain the wonder of the world.
Intelligent Design is inserting a designer into the gaps of our knowledge, just as all the superstitious people have done for millennia.
It is in fact anti-scientific, and it is for this reason we should be hostile to it. It is anti-scientific because religious believers come to deeply cherish these stories of intelligent designers as evidence that their particular intelligent designer exists. As such, a powerful inertia builds surrounding these notions which causes them to last as (pseudo)explanations much longer than they should.
As with any ridiculous notion, the notion of an intelligent designer deserves ridicule. It is wild speculation with no substance, and ought to be treated as such.
@Nœmer Araullo WHY do you need to inject the idea of god into science? if you want to believe, believe. however, it has nothing to do with science. science--all knowledge--can be very fluid. what is perceived wisdom is perceived wisdom until it is disproven or enough doubt created to make people investigate, prod and poke it more.
You will notice, Noemer, that I didn't say God doesn't exist. I said the notion of God creating anything at all is a wildly speculative idea that has no evidence. I will also add now that the notion of believing in God is indeed also a wildly speculative notion that also has zero evidence. As a wildly speculative notion, it should be treated as other wildly speculative notions are. But, please note, I have not said that there is no god. I really don't care to argue that at all, and I don't think it is necessary to do so.
@Matthew Leeds @Tim A @FirstName LastName With all due respect, one day you'll eat up your own words and take back all the ridicule and hostility that you've had for that Intelligent Designer once you're face to face with Him...that is, if you're lucky enough to meet Him at all... I'm astonished at the fact that almost all atheists and agnostics say the same things over and over, claiming there is no evidence for a higher form of being or spirits or God or that the universe is not a product of creation but of accident and evolution... But the truth is, it's not just those things we have yet to understand that prove them wrong but more so the very things that we seem to understand, although not fully, such as the miracles and wonders of every single thing in the universe, the mystery and beauty of how they function and work together.. It's simply way beyond human understanding.. Plus, there's a written account of history that states how people of ancient times interacted with spirits. Mind you, even now, there are mind-boggling events no one can fully explain. Let's just say, okay, one catastrophic event happens, well it's science, there's tsunami here and there caused by an undersea earthquake, does that explain it? There's a reason for all that as there's indeed a higher being who's in control of such things that are bound by the laws of science (which laws He Himself has set in the first place)..
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