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The supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way "eats" asteroids on a regular basis, concluded using the American Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Over the course of several years, Chandra discovered a series of X-ray blasts with a frequency of approximately one a day from the black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*).
Many other powerful instruments like ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile, the European X-ray satellite XXM-Newton and the Keck telescope in
Hawaii also observed this phenomenon.
The X-ray bursts always last from half an hour to a couple of hours with a brightness that varies from several times to 100 times that of
the black hole's normal 'output'. The disintegration and subsequent vaporisation of asteroids that orbit the black hole may solve the mystery of
the origin of these blasts.
'We think that the blasts from Sgr A* may be caused by the black hole "gorging" itself on asteroids, says Kastytis Zubovas of Leicester University (UK)
and the main author of an article published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The astronomers suggest that a cloud of hundreds of billions of asteroids and comets, pulled from their mother star, surrounds Sgr A*.
Asteroids that pass the black hole at a distance of around 160 million kilometres - roughly the distance from the earth to the sun - are rent into pieces
by the tidal forces of the black hole.
The fragments then vaporise as they fall through the thin hot gas that flows toward Sgr A*, similar to a meteor falling into the earth's atmosphere.
An X-ray flash is produced and what remains of the asteroids is eventually devoured by the black hole.
Although Sgr A* consumes many more smaller asteroids, the authors believe that the blasts are caused by asteroids with a diameter of 20 km or greater.
If the asteroid passes within about 100 million miles of the black hole, roughly the distance between the Earth and the Sun,
it would be torn into pieces by the tidal forces from the black hole. These fragments would then be vaporized by friction as
they pass through the hot, thin gas flowing onto Sgr A*, similar to a meteor heating up and glowing as it falls through Earth's atmosphere.
A flare is produced and eventually the remains of the asteroid are swallowed by the black hole.
(Credit: Illustrations: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
The results tally with estimates of the number of asteroids that must be present in the region.
'As a "reality check", we have calculated that the black hole must have devoured several trillion asteroids in the 10 billion years that the Milky Way has
existed,' explains co-author Sera Markoff (UvA). 'Only a fraction of the total number has been swallowed so there is still an ample supply.'
Chandra will continue its observations of Sgr A* in order to collect new information on the frequency and brightness of the blasts and to test the model presented.
Astronomers believe that it will be the same number of powerful blasts in 2012 as in the last 12 years.
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MessageToEagle.com -
The supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way "eats" asteroids on a regular basis, concluded using the American Chandra X-ray Observatory.
This record breaking wind is moving about 20 million miles per hour - about 3% the speed of light and may be carrying away much more material
than the black hole is actually capturing.
This is nearly ten times faster than had ever been seen from a stellar-mass black hole, and matches some of the fastest winds g
enerated by supermassive black holes, objects millions or billions of times more massive.
There's no lack of ice in our solar system.
Our Universe is a beautiful and very large place. We have so far only observed a small portion of all marvels our Universe has to offer.
With help of technological breakthroughs, our knowledge will expand and we will soon make new exciting, scientific discoveries.
It is a first step in identifying some of the most elusive elements in the universe.
Using the Hubble's spectrograph, the researchers from institutions including MIT have found,
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This alien intruder from another galaxy is in many ways different from other exoplanets observed by astronomers.
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